The School Exchange
by vicxie22
Summary: During 7th year Dumbledore reveals that this year, there's going to be an exchange between Hogwarts and a Scandinavian wizard school.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first fanfiction ever, so please be kind and please review! Some information that is good to know about this fanfiction is that it takes place the school year after the war. Dumbledore didn't die, though Bellatrix and Voldemort did. The ministry of magic has decided that all students that went last years when Snape was headmaster, have do the year again, so that they will have a proper education and not a death eater inspired one. I think that's all you need to know.!**

**And thanks to my lovely beta and inspiration to start writing Freakyella!**

**Again, please review!**

**Chapter 1: Back to school.**

_1__th__ September: _

Hermione was thrilled to go back to school again and was very happy with the government's decision that they all needed to go another year at Hogwarts. She had really missed school during their horrokrux hunt. Of course Harry and Ron didn't share her enthusiasm, but that was to be expected. She thought about the year that would come and felt how a genuine smile started to grow on her lips when she saw how the Weasley family and waved cheerfully to Ron and Ginny when they approached her near the entrance to the platform of 9 and ¾. When they were close enough she left her things on the ground and ran over and hugged Ginny closely.

"I've missed you" She said truly and got an "I missed you to 'Mione" back before releasing her and turning to where Ron stood. Things had been a bit awkward between them since they decided not to be together under the summer. The reason was mainly Hermione's since she didn't stand all the girls that flirted with Ron.

Actually, the problem hadn't been the girls flirting with Ron, she could manage that. She understood why they did flirt with him. He was after all a war hero. The problem was that Ron openly flirted back. When she had talked to him about the problem, he got mad and said that she just was jealous with him because he got all the attention. That had made Hermione see red, and the slap that she'd given Ron, had made them realize that they weren't meant for each other. And hence their breakup, there had been this feeling of awkwardness between them. But, she had decided before she got to Kings Cross Station, that she would ignore that tiny feeling and work hard on trying to become best friends again. And if that wasn't possible, then just friends without the awkwardness would do just fine.

So, after her hug with Ginny, she gave Ron a big smile and gave him a hug and a "hi". Ron had apparently also decided to let the past be in the past and gave her a bone crushing hug and a "Nice to see you again". She gave quick hugs to the others in the Weasley family and then heard a familiar voice saying. "Hello, everyone!" She gave a shriek of happiness and throws herself around her black-haired best friend.

She hadn't seen Harry in almost the whole summer since she quickly had travelled to Australia with a couple of Aurors from the ministry to go and find her parents and break the charm she'd put on them for their safety. When she'd come home after almost a month, Harry was too busy with all the testimonies against the remaining death eaters that he barely had time to sleep, less hang out with her. Though when she had heard from Ginny that he'd been at the Burrow a couple of times to hang out with Ron, it had hurt to hear. But she just had to accept that she would always come second after Ron. The only time during the summer she'd actually had spoken with him more than 10 minutes had been at his birthday.

She ended the hug and let him say hi to the others. As she watched him hug the others Mrs Weasley came up to her and congratulated her on being the head girl. "Thanks Mrs Weasley, I wasn't really sure if it would be me or not, but I got so happy when it came with the post" She said as she looked down on the head girl badge in her hand. "Everybody here, right? Then let's go through!" Mr Wesaley said standing next to her parents. Her parents hadn't, much to Hermiones relief, been so angry at her but they understood why she'd done it. After a much needed week to catch up with her, her parents moved back to Britain and their old house. And now here she was, ready to go back to her second home, Hogwarts.

ₒₒₒ

Draco was always a bit reluctant to go back to school. This year was no exception, and this year the feeling had quadrupled. If it hadn't been for his mother, and that stupid decision that he needed to go back to Hogwarts, he would have preferred to be home schooled. Or who was he kidding? He would have died of boredom if he had stayed at the Manor with only Mother as company. This was probably as mother had said, for the best. Even though he would never confess to her that she was right. That just wasn't something that Malfoys do, according to his Father. Although he had after the war and since Father's departure to Azkaban, realized that to be able to keep up with the society's change. He and Mother needed to put those quote and guidelines on how to behave like a perfect Malfoy, aside.

Or that was actually also something his Mother had decided, but he always had liked to take credit for things other had done. That was just how he was, he smirked at himself, but abruptly ended it when Mother started talking. After the war, Mother had started to talk about her feelings, her feelings about him and Father. He was glad that Mother felt that she could express herself these days, but she didn't had to do it to him. So when Mother said that she would miss him and gave him a hug before he entered the train, he just stood there and wished it to be over. He also noticed that she had tears in her eyes, so he quickly ended the hug and stepped into the train that was going to take him back to school.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So, here comes the second chapter. Hope you liked the first one. Thanks to you that story** **alerted my story! It really made my day! And please review, otherwise, I don't know if you like it or** **not! Thanks to my delightful beta Freakyella!**

The train started to move so he picked up his trunk and walked to his friends. The only thing that would make this year bearable or at least he hoped they would. Suddenly he saw Blaise Zabini, his best friend, walk out of a coupe. "Where are you going?" he asked quite rudely. '

"Hey Drake! I'm Head Boy this year, didn't I tell you?".

"No, I think I would remember that" he said dryly, feeling a bit upset. If Blaise was head boy he had to be alone with the others, and he sure as hell didn't want that right now.

"Sorry mate, but duty calls" Blaise teased.

"Tell Granger I said hi", "Granger?"

Blaise asked looking a bit confused. Even though Blaise was his best friend, it didn't stop him to think bad about him, he could really be an idiot occasionally! "Blaise, do you honestly think that someone else than Hermione Granger would become head girl?" He asked with a tone that made it clear that he thought that Blaise was really corked. Blaise just gave him an irritated look before walking away from him probably headed to the prefects' coupe. He smirked at himself before taking a deep breath and opened the door to the coupe that Blaise walked away from.

"Drakie!" He heard from Pansy the second he stepped in. God, he really hated that nickname. But since they'd known each other since they were toddlers, he only gave her a plagued frown before he answered "Hi pans!" He quickly put his trunk away and then turned his head to look at the others in the coupe. Millicent Bullstrode and Daphne Greengrass were both to be expected since Pansy was here, they loyally followed her like a dog follow their owner. Quite pathetic really. He gave them a quick nod and then gave Malcolm Baddock, Miles Bletchley and Terence Higgs the same greeting. God, lucky Pansy was here. She quickly told him about her summer, ignoring her friends. This was mainly the reason why he loved Pansy, as a friend of course!, she would always do anything for him, and the other way round.

Hermione already sat in the coupe that belonged to the prefects and the heads. She was curious about who the head boy would be. If Malfoy hadn't been son to a death eater, she would consider him as the most practical choice. But since he was, she didn't think that Dumbledore would pick him. Most of the students, especially the younger ones, would probably be scared when they saw him and avoid him like he would punish them with the cruciatus curse. However, Hermione knew him better than that, and knew he wouldn't do something like that after all he'd been through the last two years. But on the other hand, she wasn't scared of him as most of the other students were. Students were not supposed to be afraid of the Heads, more like see up to them. And there was the reason why she thought somebody else got the job, and she was right. Because when the door opened it was Blaise Zabini that wore the head boy badge. This would definitely become interesting! "Nice to see you again Granger" Blaise greeted her politely.

"You too, Zabini".

"Oh" Blaise said as if he just remembered something very important. She looked at him, curious on what he was going to say. "Malfoy told me to say hi to you". What? Why would Malfoy say that to her, strange!

"Err, okay" was her answer. Blaise looked at her but didn't say anymore. They just sat there quietly until the door was opened.

This time, it was professor McGonagall who entered the coupe. "Well, hello there, I have an important message to the two of you" she said rather fast. Hermione looked at her with an inquisitive expression on her face. "This year, the School has decided to start an exchange program with a Scandinavian school. And, as you both are heads, you will both be in the exchange program. No buts Miss Granger!" McGonagall said as she saw Hermione's expression.

"Are we going to get any more information or is that all we get for now?" Blaise asked.

"The Head master will tell you all about it at the feast". With that said the left the coupe to let the news sink in.

"Well, that was very interesting" Blaise said after almost 10 minutes of silence. She agreed and let her thoughts wander. She had always wondered how students at other schools had it. She knew that Hogwarts, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang where the three biggest wizardingschools in Europe. She knew that there existed a few smaller schools, but didn't know anything about them. When she thought about it she actually only new very little about all the other schools, except her own. That was really something she would look up in the library when she arrived! All she knew about Beauxbatons was what Fleur had told her. According to her it was very beautiful, didn't have ghosts or armors, and at the winter it had ice sculptures that didn't melted in the great hall. The little she knew about Durmstang was the things Viktor had told her. And it wasn't anything that she already didn't know. Just that it was located at a cold place and did not have a very good defense. He wasn't very talkative. She blushed at the memory of her old boyfriend and ignored the glance Zabini gave her. She hadn't thought about him in a while and allowed herself to do it. Now, years later, she couldn't realize why she had liked him, but she had. But even now, she didn't understand what he had liked about her. She wasn't the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts. But he had, and he was a splendid kisser. She blushed some more and this time Zabini slowly raised his eyebrow. "Why are you blushing Granger, having naughty thoughts?" If he only knew, she thought as she gave a charming smile and politely asked if they should patrol the train corridors now.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: The third chapter. Hope you are as thrilled as I am! I can't wait to the moment when the exchange actually begins! And again, thanks to you who adds my fanfiction to your story alerts. Please leave a review as well! **

**And as always, thanks to my beta Freakyella.**

As they arrived to the great hall Hermione was as happy as she could possibly be. She was finally back! She really hoped that this exchange thing wouldn't affect her NEWT: s result. Because she knew that grades you got on them was very important later in your work carrier. She hadn't really thought about what she wanted to work with though. The ministry had offered her, Harry and Ron as well, a job as an Auror. But catching bad guys wasn't really her thing. She wanted to work with something slightly safer. Her adventures had thought made her realize that she needed to do something meaningful and with that thought she'd realized that she could never work at a desk at the ministry. Ron's elder brother Charlie had spoken with Hermione about his job, and she thought that curse-breaking might be something for her. So, in order to become a curse-breaker, she had to study hard and get O: s on all her exams. And in order to be able to study hard, this exchange thing could not take up to much of her time. But it could also be quite fun, she thought to herself while walking in through the doors with Ginny, Harry and Ron. They sat down at the Gryffindor table next to Seamus, Lavender, Neville and Parvati.

As soon as everybody had been seated, the doors opened and the first years entered the great hall. The sorting ceremony started and then come the moment she'd been waiting for, Dumbledore speech. He started it the normal way, telling the first years the main rules and then the interesting part came. "This year students, we have a new program to introduce you to. It's called the School Exchange program. And as the name say, we are going to have an exchange program with another wizard school. This school is located in Sweden, and is called The Aradia Institute. The special thing with this extraordinary school is that it's not only witches and wizards from Sweden, but from whole Scandinavia. That means that there are students from Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden." He explained with the students' undivided attention, carefully not to miss a single word he said. Maybe Hermione had underestimated this whole exchange a bit. "The program will start in the end of November and continue through the year and will end in June. When you are there you will be joining the Aradia students' to class for 4 months, then they will, as expected in an exchange, come here for 3 months. Only last years are allowed to go, and of course we won't force anyone to go. In fact, there will be about 20 of you that are allowed to go. So if you are interested, please talk to professor McGonagall. I think that's all the information you need right now. Let the feast begin!" Dumbledore said to the students and the same second he said those words, the food stood at the tables.

Well, wasn't that interesting! Draco thought as he took a generous amount of food and put it on his plate. If he went to that other school, he hadn't really paid attention enough to remember the name of the school, he would get away from Hogwarts for four months. And that was, in his mind, always something. "Ahh, I am so going! I always wanted to see a polar bear" Daphne said really excited. She was really an idiot.

"Daphne, there are no polar bears in Sweden" Pansy kindly explained to her friend, who looked very disappointed. God, she REALLY was an idiot, but he had to admit that she was hot! "Well, I am not going" Pansy declared. Draco gave her a questioning look, and she took it as sign to continue. "Because I've heard that they are all very daft there, in Sweden. And I think that I need some normality in my life. And we are going to be there during the winter and then it is very cold!" Pansy said and of course Millicent and Daphne agreed with her. Then the moment he'd waited for came, "Are you going Draco" Tracey Davis asked him. Suddenly all eyes were at him,

"Well Tracey, not that it is in any of your business, but yes. I do believe so" He said in an arrogant voice that reflected his personality. "Someone's got to keep an eye at Blaise so that he does not get blown away by the beautiful girls Sweden is rumored to have"

"So you're going for noble reasons Drakie" Pansy asked with a tone that made it clear that she didn't believe a word of what he just had said. "

It's like you could read my mind Pa…" He abruptly ended the sentence when the deserts turned up on the tables and didn't start the conversation again.

"Miss Granger and Mr Zabini, If you follow me I will escort you to your new accommodations" Professor McGonagall said after the feast. Oh, she had forgotten that she would no longer share room with Lavender and the other girls. She would have her own bedroom and share to common room with Zabini. How could she have forgotten that? She and Zabini would even have their own fireplace. Not that she would have much use of it, but it was going to be fun to have one! The professor led them to a portrait on the third floor right above the kitchen she guessed. The painting showed a very beautiful lady that wore a royal blue floor length dress robe that matched her eyes. She had dark brown curly hair that seemed to float down over her shoulders and down to her belly. To keep the hair from her face, she wore a head band that matched the dress. Her skin was almost as pale as Malfoy's and she had pink lips, marked cheekbones and thick, dense eyelashes. She was absolutely the most beautiful painting she had ever seen. She shot a glance at Zabini and he seemed to thinking the exact same thing.

"This, Roseline, is our two new Heads this year, Mr Blaise Zabini as Head Boy, and Miss Hermione Granger as Head Girl. This, Mr Zabini and Miss Granger is Roseline. She is the protector of the Heads section in the castle. I'll leave you then to decide a password" Professor McGonagall said before leaving them alone.

"Welcome" Roseline said giving them both a big smile that immediately made Hermione trust her. "What would you like to have as a password?" she asked in a silky smooth voice. Hermione looked over at Zabini who said" What do you think about Aradia, Granger?"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: So here comes the fourth chapter! I think that this is going to be the last chapter in a while, since I'm going skiing tomorrow. But I have a 6 hours bus ride ahead of me, so I will probably write one or two chapters. I will just not be able to upload them! And like always, thanks to you who story alerted, and especially thanks to ****Rose-Blue775**** who added my fanfiction as her favorite story. I got really happy! Review if you like it, and review if you don't. **

**Freakyella, you're the best!**

"Oh, please agree to that password miss!" Roseline said in an exited voice.

"Please say Hermione, and why, does it have special meaning to you"? Hermine asked and didn't do a very good job at hiding the curiousness in her voice.

"Don't say you don't know the story about Aradia miss Hermione!"

"Err, well no" She confessed, "Don't look at me that way Zabini, you can't really expect me to know everything" she said with a touch of irritation.

"I think, now that we share accommodations, you should probably say Blaise. And it is actually a bit funny that you don't know the story about Aradia, not that I do either, so Rosaline please tell us"

"I guess that you Mr Zabini, sorry Mr Blaise" she said when she saw Blaise's facial expression"took the password because of the exchange program your both in?" she continued her sentence. When Blaise gave her a nod, she continued, "Ah, then I see. Well I thought you choose the name because of who she where. You see, Aradia, was according to the old religion in Italy, the keeper or protector of the witches. Sometimes they also called her The Beautiful Pilgrim. So according to history, I don't know if just this part is true, but as she was a pilgrim in Italy, and wasn't very successful there, she decided to try her luck elsewhere. So she travelled to Sweden, and was there, very successful. So in after a few years, someone not so important in this story" Roseline said with glimpse in her eye" decided that they wanted to thank her for coming and teach them real witchcraft. So they decided to build a school. And the school of course got the name The Aradia Institute." She finished her story. "And it's a good word to have as a password though I have a portrait in that school too" she said with a big smile.

"But if that is true, the school must be the eldest in the world" Hermione gasped

"That is correct! And since I have a painting there, I'm going to be your section keeper there as well."

"Oh, well that's convenient" she said.

"Yes, I think so too, miss Hermione. So will you agree to have Aradia as a password?

"I think that Aradia is an excellent password" she said as a smile directed to Roseline was on her lips.

As Roseline opened the door for them, both Hermione and Blaise gasped. The common room was so beautiful. They heard a "Hope you like it" from Roseline before she closed the door after them. The ceiling was almost 4 meters high, and on the walls right and left to the door there was two panorama windows on each side and between the windows where a door. On the right door it stood Mr. Blaise Zabini, and on the left door it stood Miss Hermione Granger. The room itself was very light, thanks to the windows, and on opposite wall of the where they stood, was a big, brick made fireplace. In front of it stood a coffee table and two big coaches stood next to the table. Above the fireplace was an amazing painting over the castle. "Want to explore the rooms together, or by yourself?" Blaise asked. She gladly picked the former one, glad he'd asked. Maybe they could over look that she was a Gryffindor and he a Slytherin and be friends! As Blaise walked towards her door, she took it as a sign that they would explore her room first.

"Ready?" He asked, and at her nod, he slowly opened the door to the room that would be hers for the year.

The room was, like the common room, wonderful. The walls had the color of light gold, and the windows in the room had an amazing view over the lake and gave the room a perfect amount of light. To her left, there was a desk that looked to be at least 200 years old and a matching chair. There was also a bookshelf for her to put her books in. The bookshelf was placed directly under the windows. On the other side of the room was a huge bed. The sheets where in ruby red with her house emblem embroidered on. There was also a sitting area with two armchairs in the same color as her sheets. A perfect place for her to read! She looked to the right and noticed two doors.

"That's probably the bathroom and your wardrobe" Blaise said when he saw that she'd watched the doors intensely. When she opened the doors she noticed that he was right. The bathroom was nothing speciel, except for the fact that it was her own. The wardrobe was a too small to call a walk-in closet, but you did walk into it.

"Ah, I love this room" she said to a laughing Blaise. "Let's go and check out yours".

Blaise's room was exactly like hers, except that the walls had a light silver color and the sheets and armchairs where in emerald green. But there was one thing that was sitting on Blaise's bed that hadn't occurred in Hermione's room. That thing had a smirk on its face and was named Draco Malfoy.

"Hey Drake" Blaise said, looking confused. "How did you get in here? And how did you know where we had our rooms?"

"I didn't. I got here by floo" he said, looking awfully proud off himself.

"How d.."

"Oh, Granger, nice to see you again and if you must know. I flooed here from Snape's office. He always have some floo powder to share" He said, quite lazily. "So this is your rooms? They are really nice, I think I'll be spending much time here" And to his pleasure, he saw Granger looking slightly uncomfortable. "But I won't be bothering you Granger" he teased. "I guess I see you guys later, I should probably go back, before any of the morons I live with notices that I am gone" And with that said, he walk passed them and out through the whole in the wall, walking pass Roseline.

**A/N: I found all my information about Araida on the internet so I apologize if something is not correct. But mostly I made the story up. But I hope you enjoyed it! These are the websites that I used: **. **and** .


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Finally going somewhere in this story! Please review and thanks to my luvly beta freakyella.**

_2nd November:_

15th November was a date Hermione both longed for and dreaded for. It was almost two weeks left before she was going to The Aradia Institute. The first month in school had been a real hectic month for her as Head Girl, with new routines to remember. But after all, routines were a good thing according to her. She had already got used to her new room and enjoyed it more day by day. The jealous looks her friends gave were also something she enjoyed. Her mum had always said that if you work really hard, you will always get a reward. And Hermione certainly had. The room was really to die for. Ginny had almost fainted the first time she came to visit.

Even though she had her own desk, she still preferred to do her homework in the library. It was something with libraries that she couldn't resist. Especially the Hogwarts library, it was so old! It contained books from different centuries. You could find all the information you needed and she had only been disappointed in finding facts once. And that said a lot about a library.

Another thing that the library had provided her with, except knowledge was a friendship with Blaise. They often studied together at a table, sometimes Malfoy joined them. But mostly it was just the two of them. They didn't talk much during the time the studied, but she found it comfortable that way. She had started to like him almost as much as she liked Harry and Ron. Sure, he could behave like a git sometimes and drive her nuts, but he was also very kind and amusing.

Her friendship with Blaise had lead to an acceptance between her and Malfoy. And that acceptance took her back to the present and the library, where she just now sat with a studying Malfoy next to her. Without Blaise. She had been really surprised, but a little bit flattered when he had asked her if he may join her at her table though all the other tables were occupied. She had given him permission to sit down and there had been no exchange of words since. If someone had told her two months ago that she would sit quietly in the library and study with Malfoy, she would have laughed at them for even suggesting such a thing. But here she was. She shot a glance at Malfoy who seemed to be concentrating hard on the essay he was writing. Since he seemed busy, she greeted the moment to observe him a bit closer. She really understood why all the girls in school liked him. She had to admit that he was very attractive with his platinum blond hair and grey eyes. She continued her close viewing of him and suddenly heard him speak.

"Seeing something you like Granger" She heard him say and looked up from his pink lips to his grey eyes. She blushed against her will and the smirk in this face grew bigger.

"Don't flatter yourself, your ego is already big enough" she said trying to force away the blood in her chins.

At those words, he gave her an irritated look and returned to his essay again.

Merlin, Granger really was good at ruining nice moments. Yes, he had to admit that this had been a nice moment. Studying with Granger was something he enjoyed. He had gotten used to it thanks to Blaise. He though that the thing he liked with studying with her was that she didn't talk. She was quiet and he liked to watch her sometimes when she didn't notice. She always looked so peaceful and for some wicked reason, it made him peaceful as well. That was the reason that he'd asked her if he could join her at her table when the others were occupied. He had thought that she would decline but she had surprised him and said that he may join her.

When he was going to take a little break, he looked up and saw her stare at him, and he couldn't resist asking if she liked what she saw. She had started to blush and he could feel the smirk on his lips. Then she'd been very rude to him, and much to his own surprise he had not argued against her. A couple of minutes later he was just about to start speaking to her again, when the Weasley girl came up to them. "Hey 'Mione, can I si… "She abruptly stopped mid-sentence. "Malfoy what are you doing here?

"Well, I am studying, what does it look like Weaslette?

"Err, but why do you sit with Hermione?"

"Because it was either Granger or Zakarias Smith, and I rather sit with someone intelligent" He looked at Granger, and when he saw her surprised look, he realized he'd just given her a compliment. Fuck. He knew that she was smart and pretty, but it was never something he would admit. Wait, did he just think that she was pretty? Oh Merlin, he forced himself not to blush. "As much as I would love your company Weasley" he said in a sarcastic voice "I got to go and prepare myself for the exchange program meeting" he excused himself. Mother had, after all, raised him to be a gentleman. So he picked up his belongings and quickly left the library before he would give compliments to anyone else. Compliments were, after all, not something Malfoys' did.

An hour later, Hermione and 19 other students from all the four houses sat in a classroom where an awkward silence reigned. The meeting was just about to start, they only waited for Dumbledore. After another three more awkward minutes, the doors opened and their Head Master joined them. "Shall we begin?" he asked professor McGonagall.

"I think we should" She said with her strict voice. "The crowd is yours Albus" she said. "Thank you Minerva. There were many that were interested in this program and you are the 20 lucky students that will get the opportunity to go to Sweden. There are, of course some things we need to talk about" Dumbledore continued. "Firstly, what you need to bring is your schoolbooks, and some clothes. While you are there, you will dress in their school uniform and not your Hogwarts uniforms. You should bring your books since they have the same books" Yes, Mr Smith, Dumledore said when Zakarias Smith raised his hand.

"Professor, why do they have the same books as us, they speak Swedish and how exactly can we join the Aradia students to class when they speak Swedish in class?" Smith asked. She silently agreed on his question and listened carefully to old wizards answer.

"If you had been listening carefully Mr Smith, you'd know that it's not only Swedish students at the school. There are also students from Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Since they all speak different languages, they speak English so that everyone will understand properly. While you are there…" Dumbledore continued to speak like Zakarias Smith hadn't interrupted him… "You will behave suitably and study hard. You will obey the Heads from both schools. And while you are there, try to make some new friends, that is after all, what this exchange is all about. Lastly, another important thing, when you arrive, a mentor has been picked for you. This mentor is going to give you a tour around the castle and is the person you will ask your questions too. There are 3 houses in Aradia. You will be temporarily sorted into the same house as your mentor. That was all the information you needed. Now off to bed!"

When she walked quietly with Blaise towards their accommodations, she couldn't help thinking that this exchange thing certainly sounded better and better.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hey! Now I am home from my ski vacation, or at least I'm home today and tomorrow. Then I'm off again… I hope that you all like this chapter and thanks to Freakyella, my Beta and inspiration source. If you have the time, read her fanfiction "A pleasant vacation". It's very good!**

_13__th__ November_

Two more days and then I´ll don't have to be here on this crappy school for four months. Oh happiness, Draco thought to himself while walking towards Blaise and Grangers quarters. He would never admit it, and especially not to his best friend, he was very jealous of him. He had his own room and did not have to share room with Adrian Pucey, Graham Pritchard and Theodore Nott. He hated sharing! Sharing wasn't something he normally had to do, he as an only child.

"Hey Roseline" He said when he stood in front of her. She hadn't noticed him. She was apparently busy with looking herself in the mirror. He didn't know that paintings could watch themselves in mirrors, but hey, you learn something new every day.

"Well hello Draco, how are you today?" she said while she blinked with her eyes and spun her hair around her painted pale finger. God, did she flirt with me? Draco thought and quickly said the password, a bit uncomfortable with the realization that a painting was flirting with him.

"Going all ready?" was the last thing he heard her say before the door closed. Inside he walked over to Blaise's room, knocked and walked in. Empty of course. Blaise was almost never in his room this early. It was after all only 17.15. Classes had just ended.

He walked across the common room and knocked on Grangers door this time. He heard an "enter" and opened the door. She was studying at her desk and looked stressed. And for good reasons it looked like. She had none less them 5 books opened at the same time and it was 7 more books unopened at the desk in proper piles. It looked like she was reading from three books at the time and writing notes. "What are you doing?" he asked, intressed in what could be so important that she had put her arithmancy homework at hold. Or he guessed that she had since the book was one of those in the piles at her desk. Arithmancy was her favorite subject, he had learned while studying with her and Blaise in the library. And she looked more thrilled at those classes than anyone else. He would know though he always sat behind her at those classes. She looked at him for the first time and answered

"I'm preparing myself for the exchange"

"And you're reading what?" He asked

"All the books I could find about Aradia in the library" she explained.

"Always this craves for information, huh? Can't take it as it comes?" he teased a little.

"No, I prefer to have some background info when I'm going somewhere new" She said, not even noticing he had teased her. He was in the mood for a real fight, or at least a verbal one. For a verbal fight, there was none better than Granger.

"Have you found something interesting? " And to his own surprise, he walked into her room and placed himself next to her. She looked up at him for a second, not really sure if he really stood there, then looked down at her notes.

"It depends on what you think is interesting, but yeah, I found some interesting stuff. Like that Aradia is located in the north of Sweden. Very north, it is very close to where Norway, Sweden and Finland boarders meet. Since where going there during the winter months there are going to be extremely cold but beautiful and the school is located near a wizard-village called Kittelby. If you translate Kittelby to English it becomes like Cauldronvillage. There are about 360 students, most of them from Sweden. It's probably because Sweden has the biggest population of all four countries. "

"You checked up the populations of all the countries?" he said with a smirk. As she blushed and started to explain herself he interrupted "You really are a Know-it-all Granger". Much to his irritation, she apparently got pissed that he had called her a know it all.

"If you are going to call me names, you are not welcome here. In fact, why are you here at all? It's not like you would normally want a bloody know-it-all as company. She spat at him. God, that girl really had some temperament.

"I was teasing with you Granger. No need to blow yourself up. You maybe fall of your chair. Wouldn't want that do we?" He teased even more, just because he was in the mood to fight with her. As a response she cast her seventh year potion book at him. He was quite surprised at her action that he ducked instead of just taking a step to the side and hence he got the book in his head. Bloody hell! It hurt like hell. That book with it's 5oo pages wasn't exactly light.

"Fuck Granger, why did you do that?" Draco cried at her.

"Your made me upset you little albino" she shouted back. Albino, he was not an albino. Did she really thought that. He had fucking grey eyes, not red. Was she colorblind or what? He could feel how his blood boiled in his veins.

"I'm not an albino, I have bloody grey eyes you Mudblod he spat at her. He immediately regretted the word as he saw her genuine hurt look.

"Get out" she told him in a numb voice, very close to tears.

**ooo**

She stared at Malfoy through water filled eyes. When he didn't move, she shouted the same sentence to him again. Instead of walking away he came closer.

"Granger, I'm..." he began

"I don't want to hear another word that you have to say, in fact I don't even want to see you anymore. I thought that we were acquaintances Malfoy and in any case being courteous to each other. Especially since we're both going to Sweden. But it seems like I was wrong." And with those words she picked up her homework for the next day and left her room with tears falling down her cheeks.

She walked toward the library and ignored the looks she got. Head Girls are not supposed to cry in the hallways. She sat down at her normal table and wondered why Malfoy always had to ruin everything. She had actually started to see him as a friend. Then he ruins it all with calling her a Mudblod. Even though she had been called it many times before, it had hurt badly when he had called her that. This just showed that she could never be friendly with Malfoy. She wiped her tears away and started with her homework.

"Hey 'Mione," she heard Ron and Harry say as they sat down next to her. Look happy, she told herself before greeting them.

"Have you been crying?" Ron asked and she could hear the concern in his voice. Ron was a real friend. He cared about her and her feelings and so did Harry. She didn't need a friend that hurt her. She hadn't really told either Ron or Harry about her and Malfoy being nice together and now wasn't really the time when Ron and Harry had seen that she had been crying they would probably go and hex Malfoy if she told them what he'd said. So she put a big true smile on her face.

"Maybe, but now when you are here, everything is just fine" she said, hoping that they would be pleased with that answer. They both looked very happy, and to her joy, they let the subject go.

"We are really going to miss you when you are gone you know" Harry said.

"I'll miss you too. But I promise I owl you as often as I can"

"So, should we skip studying and hang out properly one last time before you go away. You are always in your room these days, we never see you except at food time and at classes?" Ron said with a glimpse in his eyes.

"Ron" Hermione laughed "Always so eager to skip homework. But sure, I guess that I could do my arithmancy homework tomorrow at my free period" she said cheerfully.

"That's the spirit 'Mione" Harry said.

Instead of studying Hermione had a wonderful evening in the Gryffindor common room just hanging out with Ron, Harry, Ginny, Seamus, Dean and Neville. It was only when she was back in her room and lied down in her bed she allowed herself to think about what Malfoy had said earlier, and for the second time that day tears rolled down Hermione's cheeks.


	7. Chapter 7: Breakfast with Dumbledore

**A/N: Hope that you enjoyed the last chapter! This is the last chapter before they are leaving, and I'm thrilled that they soon are going to the Institute. I and my wonderful beta, Freakyella, have some wonderful ideas about what is going to happen there during their four months. So since I'm going away tomorrow again, I will not update in mayby 4-5 days. Just so you know! **

**Thanks to all of you who story- and favorite alert my story, I get really happy every time I open my mailbox and see that two more has favorite- and story alerted my fanfiction!**

_14__th__ November_

Draco woke up early that morning. Still feeling horrible for calling Hermione a mudblod. He didn't really know why he felt so upset. It wasn't like him to regret things that he'd done. He saw that the others in his dormitory still were asleep, so he quietly dressed and walked out to the common room. As expected the common room was empty. He walked through it and headed towards the Great Hall for some breakfast. He could really use some bacon, scrambled eggs and sausage right now. Food always made him feel better, so why shouldn't help this time? When he walked in, the room was empty except on one person, his Headmaster. "God morning Mr. Malfoy" Dumbledore greeted him as he walked to the Slytherin table.

"God morning Professor" he said, hoping that this would be the only phrases they would tell each other. But as always when it came to his Headmaster, he was wrong.

"Why don't you come and sit over here, I have never liked eating breakfast alone" Dumbledore said truly. It was not like Draco could decline this offer, so he walked with heavy steps up to the teachers table.

"You want me to sit at the teachers' table, professor?" he asked. He had never seen a student sit at the teachers table before.

"Yes, if you don't want to sit at the floor of course." His headmaster said with a glimpse in his eyes. He took the seat next on Dumbledore's right side, which were McGonagall's seat.

"So Mr. Malfoy" Dumbledore began. "What brings you up to breakfast so early" he asked with true interest in his voice. It was a bit weird that Dumbledore always seemed so interested in what he had to say.

"Well, I had some trouble sleeping and then I woke up early so I decided to go and eat." And what about you Professor, why do you eat breakfast this early?" he asked, just to be polite. He didn't really give a shit.

"I need to prepare a couple of things before we travel tomorrow you see. " Dumbledore explained.

"Oh I see" Draco said and with that phrase killed the conversation. Then someone just entered the Great Hall. Oh, fuck, it was Granger. She looked up at them and froze. Then a smirk started to grow on her lips.

** ooo**

When she entered the Great Hall she saw a very funny site. Malfoy and Dumbledore eating breakfast together! Malfoy looked very uncomfortable and she couldn't help that a smirk started to grow on her lips. The smirk did though disappear as fast as it had grown when professor Dumbledore asked her to join them. She slowly walked through the Great Hall and up to the teachers table where she sat down on Dumbledore's left side.

"What are you going to eat Miss Granger?" Dumbledore started the conversation.

"I'll think I have orange juice and some scramble eggs and bacon. As soon as she had said it, it stood in front of her. She had to admit that she was impressed.

"Oh that looks just delicious" Dumbledore said. "Or what do you think Mr. Malfoy?"

"Yeah, it looks really good" Malfoy said without even looking at her plate. She looked closer at him, he stared down at his plate and looked kind of sorry. Maybe he regretted what he had said yesterday. Before she could sink deeper in her thoughts Dumbledore asked

"Are you looking forward to go to Aradia Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger?" She knew that he could feel the tension in the room as good as her.

"Yes, I'm looking forward to it. I did not do it in the beginning thought. But now when I have let it sink in and really thought about it, I think it's going to be very interesting. "she said quickly before Malfoy could answer. She then started a conversation with Dumbledore about how wonderful her room was. A conversation Malfoy didn't really could participate in.

**ooo**

Later that day, Hermione sat in the same classroom as she had exactly two weeks ago. Of the twenty students that were going Hermione knew the most of them, at least by name. Dean, Seamus, Lavender and Parvati were the ones from Gryffindor. From Hufflepuff there were Hannah Abbot, Susan Bones, the git Zacharias Smith, Ernie Macmillan and some girl she had never seen before. From Ravenclaw were Parvati's twin sister Padma, Anthony Goldstein and two other boys. And from Slytherin were Blaise, Malfoy, a girl called Tracey Davies and Malcolm Baddock and a girl she recognized but didn't remember her name. She had some friends, but none that could compare with Harry, Ron and Ginny. Blaise and her Gryffindor friends were the only one that she really could say she knew. This was probably going to be four long months…

Professor Dumbledore had called them into one last meeting before the departure tomorrow. Today he was going to tell us how we were going to travel Sweden. I looked at Dean, or looked up at him would describe the situation better since he was almost 6 feet tall, who sat next to me and started talking about the trip. We hadn't talked very long before professor Dumbledore started talking.

"God Afternoon" He greeted us. "I think that you are all excited about the exchange program and a bit nervous too. Manny of you have asked us teachers how we are going to get to The Aradia Institute. And with good reasons, it is a long way, and we did not want the transportation to be boring. So, we are going to travel to Sweden with the Flightbus." At those words, many of the wizardborn students looked really excited. Hermione had no idea what the Flightbus could be. Or it was quite obvious that it was a flying bus, but she had never heard of it before. It would definitely be an interesting sight!

"To you who don't know what the Flightbus is" Dumbledore continued "it is a flying bus, similar to the Knightbus, except that it flies instead of driving." Oh, maybe it wasn't so interesting anymore, if the Flightbus were anything like the Knightbus, she would definitely not enjoy the ride. She raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Granger"

"How long is the flight going to take, professor?" she asked.

"Well, since the Institute is located in the north of Sweden, the driver, Mr. Makepeace, thinks that the journey will take about 12 hours." Dumbledore explained kindly. "We will" Yes, I'll be traveling with you. "We will be leaving exactly at 8 pm and arrive approximately at 8 am. So we are going to sleep in the bus. I think that was all I had to say. Now off you go" Dumbledore ended the meeting.

**ooo**

Traveling with the Flightbus could definitely be remarkable. He had always wanted to try, but Malfoys' did not travel with public transports. He looked at Blaise who looked positively surprised.

"Exiting" was all he had to say about this. And Draco silently agreed with his best friend. He saw how Granger walked up to Blaise, gave him a impolite glance before asking if they should go to their quarters. Even though he knew Granger was angry at him and it would not make her any less angry with him, he couldn't help saying: "Oh what a lovely idea Granger. Thanks for inviting me" He smirked when he saw her annoyed facial expression.

"What's wrong with you two?" Blaise asked with a touch of irritation "I thought you were friends"

"Pfft" It came from Granger. "I thought we were, but little Malfoy showed me that we weren't." When she had spoken those words, she quickly left the classroom and walked without Blaise to their section.


	8. Chapter 8: The Flightbus

**A/N: So now I am home from my Ski vacations for a while. At least to week 9! Then I'm off again. This is the 8****th**** chapter, not so many dialogs in this chapter, and may not be the best chapter I've written, but I hope you will enjoy it anyways. Thanks to my beta Freakyella. Don't forget to review!**

_15__th__ November_

When Hermione woke up that morning, there was a nervous feeling in her tummy. She got up, dressed and waited in the common room for Blaise as usual before they walked together to the Great Hall. "You were quiet today Hermione, are you alright? Blaise asked her. She looked up, and saw that he looked concerned. She smiled and answered the question:

"Yes, I'm fine, I'm just very nervous". Apparently Blaise accepted that answer and they walked to the Great Hall in a comfortable silence. They quickly said "Good bye" before walking to their different House tables. When she walked closer, she was how Ginny, Ron and Harry already sat at the table. Normally it was always Hermione who came to the Great Hall first in the mornings. Ginny looked up and saw her approaching.

"Good morning 'Mione!" The boys quickly said the same greeting as she sat down next to Ron.

"You were all up early" she said, simply stating the obvious.

"Well" Rom said simultaneously as a blush colored his cheeks light pink, "we wanted to spend a lot of time with you today, since you're going today." When he had finished the sentence, his cheeks were bright pink. Obviously, he still thought it was hard to say that he liked her (as a friend, nothing more!)

"You guys are too cute!" She said as she put two fried eggs on her plate. This was a day that she had dreaded, but maybe it could be a good day anyway. With that thought, she walked lightly with Ron and Harry to the dungeons' to have Potions class with the Slytherins. Not even the thought that she would have class together with Malfoy could destroy her mood right now. And as usual with Malfoy, she was awfully wrong.

When Draco saw Hermione she totally shined with happiness. That glow slowly decreased during the class. The first time when her mood decreased a little was when professor Snape took 10 points from Gryffindor because she looked too happy. Then her mood got totally ruined when professor Snape said that for today's class, they would work in pairs, and she got paired up with him. When she slowly walked over to him, walking as slow as she could, he was happy that looks couldn't kill. Because if that were the case, he would have dropped dead several times that morning. She was kind of cute when she was angry. He smiled a little and continued to cut the snakeskin in small pieces. He decided to start to talk to her before they ruined their potion and get a T on this class.

"Do you want to, or should I, mash the unicorn horn?" To show that he only meant well, he did gave her a little smile. He normally didn't smile to anyone, so she should be lucky that he had given her a smile. Normally the people he gave smiles to where his mother, Blaise and Pansy sometimes. If they had deserved it. When Hermione stared at him as he had given a lollipop to a kid, he stopped smiling and repeated the question again without the smile.

"Were you smiling?" was her answer. "And you can mash it" She didn't expect an answer on her first question, and he didn't gave her one either. But she seemed a little bit less angry after that. That was of course after we had finished and she'd dropped the cauldron on his toes.

FUCK that hurt. He gave her a murderous glance who she happily returned with an, as she thought, innocent grin. The grin grew into a smirk when he cursed loud and professor Snape took 5 points from Slytherin.

The rest of the day went faster than he had expected. When all the students who were going finally stood on the grass near the Quiditchfield they all locked a bit nervous. He was also a bit nervous, but he made sure that he had his mask up, so that no one could see it. He stood next to Blaise and locked at Hermione who stood with Dean Thomas, Patvati Patil and the other Gryffinords. She suddenly turned and locked him quickly in the eyes before she locked away again. He himself stood with the Slytherins.

"What are you looking at Draco" Olympia Watson, a very annoying Slytherin girl, asked him. According to Pansy, Olympia had decided to go to The Aradia Institute just because that he would, and she hoped that they would become great friends there. For some reason, he didn't really think that giver her way, she wouldn't want to stop at 'just friends'.

"Why do you care, Watson?" He asked, making sure she understood that she that he was not interested in being her friend when he called her by her last name. Just when the annoying little girl was about to answer him Parvati and her friend shrieked and pointed to the sky, he locked up and saw what they where pointing at. Up in the air, their transport slowly made its way down to them. It really was an amazing sight. The Flightbus was as big as the Knightbus. But there the similarities stopped. The Flightbus was light-blue with big white wings. They looked like a mix between dragon-wings and Pegasus-wings. They were about the size as dragon-wings, pearl white and graceful.

As it landed next to them, all students gasped, or at least all girls did. It was even more impressive when you looked close. The wings shook itself and then to every one's surprise neatly folded them to the sides of the bus. It looked like they were alive. He wouldn't be surprised if they were though! Mr. Makepeace, the chauffeur, opened the door and walked out. He walked out, greeting Dumbledore. Then he said

"You know, you can go in" with an amused tone. All students were still as hypnotized by the bus. Draco shot a glance at Blaise, and started to walk up the stairs into the bus. The inside of the bus was like the Knightbus, three floors and a bunch of odd armchairs and sofas. He followed Blaise up to the third floor and took a seat in the front of the bus. Much to his annoyance Olympia Watson, took the seat next to him. Could one never be alone with some guy friends? But when he looked around he saw the rest of the Slytherins sat near him and Blaise too.

"If everyone has a chair" The chauffeur said, he must have had some spell that made his voice heard in the whole bus, because they would never have heard him otherwise. "We will take off in about 3 minutes" He sat down in his chair and locked out his window and wondered if they played Quidditch at Aradia. Then he felt the bus started driving at the ground, like it collected speed before taking off. Then he saw the white wings unfold and they were on their way.


	9. Chapter 9: The Castle

**A/N: So, now they are finally on their way to Aradia Institute and for me, school has started again after the holidays, so I won't update as frequently, because I do have quite a lot of homework and presentations! But I'll hope you are fine with that!**

**Ah, I have a fanfiction for you who would like to read one, I really recommend this one, and it's very funny. It's called 10 ways to kill Draco Malfoy by Drakulya and it's a Dramione :D **

**So let's continue with the story shall we? Oh, thanks to Freaky Ella, for endlessy correcting and giving examples for how to improve my text!**

_16__th__ November_

When Hermione woke up that morning at exactly 7 am, she lay in the Flightbus bed she'd choose. In an hour they would arrive to the Scandinavian school! She looked around and saw that Dean was awake. So she pulled the curtain next to her around her bed and quickly dressed in jeans and a plain blouse. Then she decided to go and talk to Dean.

She and Dean had always got along very good, but never had the time to develop their friendship, so this trip would be a good chance to change that. "Hey Dean" She said as she came closer, he seemed lost in thoughts and looked very startled when she'd spoke.

"Oh, Hi Hermione" He said with a big smile on his face "Merlin, you scared me!" he said chuckling. The chuckle made him appear better looking than usual. He did normally look very good, but with that chuckle he seemed gorgeous. Not that she liked him in that way!

As they continued to talk more and more students started to wake up. When it was 15 minutes left of the travel they head Mr. Makepeace's voice again. "Good morning ,everyone! I hope you all have had a pleasant night sleep. Now I have to transform the beds into armchairs and sofas again, so if everyone steps out of their bed this should go smoothly…" He said and transformed the beds. "...Now you all can take a seat and we will be landing in approximately 12 minutes"

"This is it, don't be scared now" she told herself. And if all screwed up, it was only for months! She could spend her time in the library! With that calming thought she felt the tickle in her tummy that mean that the height is decreasing.

Seven minutes later she stood next to her trunk and watched the breathtaking view. The castle was located in a big valley with mountains on all sides except one, which instead was boarded by a big lake. There was a bridge over the smallest part of the lake, which Hermione guessed led to the wizard-village Kittelby. The castle itself where made of white bricks and about half the size of Hogwarts. It had several towers and they all had a dark-blue roof with a flag on each tower, the school flag she presumed. The building had A LOT of windows that most likely made the inside of the castle very bright, probably quite the opposite of Hogwarts dark interior.

Words couldn't describe it. None of the words she could think off matched the castle. And she did know a lot of words! She looked over at Parvati who stood next to her, and she literary drooled! Hermione giggled a little, and the giggle woke everyone from their admiration?. "So, now that we have watched the exterior, we should probably go inside and say hello to our hosts" Dumbledore said a little vague, so she guessed Dumbledore too had been enchanted by the beauty of the surroundings and the castle!

He had to admit that it was nicer than Hogwarts, but Parvati and Olympia drooled. It was not **that** wonderful. When Dumbledore had spoken, he had quickly picked up his bag and started to follow him. They had landed about 300 meters away from the castle, but he didn't mind. It felt nice to be able to walk properly, he had started to feel trapped inside that bus the last couple of hours.

When they walked closer to the entrance he saw the welcome committee. There were no students, but since it was 8.15 he guessed that they were either eating breakfast or on their way to their first class. Mother had said that in Sweden, they started school quite early in the mornings. The committee had five people. The Headmistress and four other people that he assumed were teachers. The Headmistress was for her age, quite a beauty. She was about 40 years old, very young for being Headmistress, and wore a navy blue knee-length dress robe that looked exactly like one his Mother had. She had long dark blond hair and blue eyes. Like a typical Swede.

When we walked up on the paved platform she walked closer to greet us. "How wonderful that you all are here" She said on perfect English, but with a slight Swedish accent. "My name is Lydia Nord, but you will call me Mrs. Nord. You won't meet my students until lunch, when we will have a 'sorting ceremony'. At the ceremony you'll meet your mentor. The house you mentor is in, will be your House. Then you will get popper clothes to wear" She said with a smile. "That was all the information that I had planned on giving you right know. The Institutes Heads will show you to your accommodations, before they'll show you the dining hall where you can eat breakfast. After breakfast you'll have free-time until lunch." Merlin, they seemed to like rules here he thought, but was very rudely interrupted in his thoughts when Mrs. Nord started talking again. "I will let the Heads introduce themselves" She said strictly, and two of the four people in the background entered. Obviously they were not just teachers.

The boy and the girl that walked towards them were both better looking than average, Hogwarts average. The boy was tall, pale and dark brown hair and very blue eyes. The girl had on the other were quite short, had light brown/golden, shiny, straight hair that ended about 3 inches under her collarbone. Her eye color was kind of hard to describe, it was a mix between hazel, honey and emerald. It was a rare mix and it seemed to change every time he looked. He didn't spend much time looking at the boy, more at the girl. It was something about her that was captivating. She suddenly looked him in the eyes and little smile played at her pink lips.

"Hey there" the girl said "My name is Vera and this is Ivorian she said pointing at the boy, that was obviously called Ivorian. Random name was all he could say. Ivorian, what were his parents thinking when they chose that name? "If you have any questions that your mentor not is available to answer, you could always come to us" Ivorian continued.

"Now, let us show you your section of the castle" Vera said. Had they practiced in speaking every other sentence or what?

Vera gave him one last hungry look before turning around and started talking to Ivorian. He smiled at her, took her hand and gave her a quick kiss before continuing. So, they were together. Then why did she gave him looks? Not that he cared about their relationship, but it must be rough when your girlfriend gives the "oh I wouldn't mind doing something with you" look at someone else. Poor, poor Ivorian! He smirked to himself and thought that if there were more girls like Vera at this school, he would be very comfortable here!

**A/N: So the expression "** This is it, don't be scared now**" is from the movie Home Alone.**

**If anyone want to watch the castle that I describes, the link is here: ****/entry/19837175/via/Vicxie**

**The castle's name is Neuschwanstein in southern Germany.**

**Don't forget to review my good fellows! **


	10. Chapter 10: Sharing

**A/N: I got a review from Johanna that said that Ivorian isn't a Swedish name, I know that, I thought it** **was funny though! That's why I took it :P Haha prepare for more random names, cause I have a random-name-list that I'm picking names from! Thanks to my lovely Freakyella!**

"Ivorian?" Hermione thought for herself as she followed the two Aradian Heads into the Castle, that was an odd name, a really odd name. When they walked in the castle, Hermione saw that her guess about the windows letting in much day light were true, the castle inside bathed in light. Or at least the hallway did. They took the first left and walked for about 10 minutes. They stopped at what looked like to be the biggest tower, and Ivorian said "Which of you are Head Boy and Head Girl?" quite rudely actually, like that he didn't wanted them to be here.

"Me and Blaise" Hermione said, pointing at Blaise.

"Good, you rooms are through that door" he said as he pointed at a small door to the left."Your rooms" he said, talking to rest of the Hogwarts students," are through this door and up the stairs. You will sleep in the room that has your name plate on the door" he said, pointing to the door behind him. "Lunch is at 12" and with those words, he took Vera's hand and they walked away, probably for class.

"See you later" She said smiling to Dean, who stood next to her and walked through the door Ivorian had pointed at. Walking through the door, she came to a small brick-walled room. At the right wall the painting of Roseline had been hanged up.

"How lovely to see you again Miss. Hermione and Mr. Blaise" she said with a sincere voice. "Password?"

"Nice to see you again Roseline, Aradia" Blaise said before Hermione could. "Maybe we should change password?"

"Yes, we should" Hermione said thinking about a new good password. Somehow Ivorians name was the first thing that came up. "What about Ivorian?" she said smiling.

"That's a good one" Blaise said laughing. "Is that password okay Rosie?"

"Whatever you want" Roseline answered gladly. Roseline was always happy, Hermione thought. That was weird because what was so fun being stuck into a painting and see how the first years grew and became adult, when they stayed the same forever. When she thought about it, being a painting was kind of the same as being a ghost, just that you couldn't move around as you like and you could only eat painted food. Poor poor Roseline.

Hermione had expected that Roseline would hide a painting behind her, but instead the wall to the left opened a concealed door.

"Oh, a secret door" Hermione said excitedly. She looked at Blaise when he laugh at her and started to raise a brow, but stopped abruptly when it reminded her of Malfoy, and said "What? It's cool." with a big smile.

"Raising eyebrows now do we? You have definitely been spending too much time with Draco" Blaise said reminding her that he was still a Slytherin.

"I have not spend too much time with Malfoy, I haven't spoke to him in a while." she said, but not realizing it herself, a bit sadly.

"Do you like spending time with him?" Blaise asked curiously.

"I liked studying with him, he is the smartest study-buddy I have had. Not to be mean to Ron, Harry or Ginny, but Malfoy are more intelligent than them."

"Yeah, he's kind of smart." Blaise said walking through the secret door and into a common room that looked exactly like the one they shared at Hogwarts.

"I wonder if our rooms look the same" Hermione said, walking fast to her room and opening the door. It looked exactly the same except that where there had been gold and ruby red before, it now had the color white.

"White?" Blaise said, standing behind her in the doorway looking over her head, she was after all not the tallest person… "How boring."

"Maybe the white changes into our house colors when we have been sorted" Hermione said, thinking that it would be the only logical reason. Because why make such a beautiful room so boring?

"Maybe your right." Blaise said and walked over to inspect his room.

She walked into her room and stopped at her trunk, that was standing next to the wardrobe door, and opened it and started to hang up the little clothes that she had brought with her. When she was finished with that, she dragged her still almost full trunk to the bookshelf and started to pack up her books in alphabetic order. Then she took out the rest of the things in her trunk and put them in the right place. Then she pulled the book she was currently reading, walked her way over to her armchair.

ooo

Draco watched Blaise and Granger heading to their section, before started walking himself towards the door Ivorian pointed at him to go. He opened the door and looked in. Stairs, of course! He sighs and started walking up. To his surprise it was only one storey up to the common room. This was not going to sound like himself, but it looked kind of, a little, if he had to admit it, cozy. The room was a big circle with one big fireplace in the middle. The room had black armchairs and sofas where they could study or play cards or whatever they wanted to do. On the walls where paintings, that were made to fit the curved walls, of wizards, plants and animals, but the most beautiful and the biggest one, was a painting of the Aradia Institute at autumn. The trees leaves shifted in red, green, yellow and orange and made it painting look vivid. Since it was a magic painting, there was a wind blowing that made the trees slowly wave. It was magnificent.

He looked to his left and saw the stairs that led to the boys dorms and again was meet with stairs. He had to walk three storeys up before seeing his name on a door. The other name on the door is Dean Thomas. He doesn't really care about whom he shares his room with, but it had been nice to share with a Slytherin. It wasn't like he would spend so much time in here anyways. As Dean Thomas walked in, he saw that Thomas is thinking the same thing. He gave Draco a nod, that he respectfully repeat.

"Which bed to do want?" Thomas asked politly.

"I'll have that one." Draco said as he pointed to the bed near the window. Thomas nodded and walked over to the other bed. Apart from the beads the room didn't have much furniture. They have each a wardrobe, a coffin behind the bed and a desk. That's about that. "Boring with white" Draco thought to himself as he started to undo his truck.

"Beans?" he heard Thomas ask and he turned around and looked suspiciously at the box of Bertie Bott's every flavor beans in Thomas's hand.

"I haven't done anything with them." Thomas said when he saw Draco's look. He slowly walked forward and took one that looked like lime or pear. Thomas took one himself and continued to undo his truck. Draco slowly put the bean in his mouth and starts to chew.

"AH, FUCK!" he yelled out loud and spitted out the bean on the floor. Thomas had quickly turned around and given him a weird look.

"It was snot flavor." He explains, and when Thomas starts to laugh, he chuckles a little himself and decides to at least give Thomas a chance. All Gryffindors' can't be like Potty and Weasel and Hermione is a good example on that.

When he's done with putting his clothes in the wardrobe and his other stuff in the coffin, he walked to go and see how Blaise's new Head Boy room is.


	11. Chapter 11: Ellie

**A/N: It's fun that so many of you Story Alerts my story, it makes me really happy! So do continue! And thanks to FreakyElla, for reading this part of the story over and over again. I don't know how many mails we send to each other trying to improve it. **

_15 November_

Hermione spend the morning in her room reading and writing letters to Ginny, Harry, Ron and her parents. At 11 o'clock she closed her book and decided that she needed some variation. So she decided to go to the common room and read instead. When she opened the door, she froze for a second then continued to walk over to the two persons in the sofas. Blaise and his platinum blond best friend. She didn't really want to sit in the common room when Draco was here, but if she went back to her room, she would feel trapped. So she walked towards the two boys and sat down next to Blaise. She had just folded her legs underneath her and where about to begin read when Draco interrupted her plans with asking "What are you reading?" It was weird that he asked, and it was even weirder that it looked like he was genuinely interested.

"Um, it's called The Hunger Games."

"Okay, would you like to join us instead?" He said, and nodding at the table and the wizard card game they were playing. Why was he so nice to her? Hermione looked over at Blaise, and he too looked surprised over his best friends offer.

"Yes, do join us Hermione." Blaise said after he stopped staring at Malfoy.

"Well, I guess I could play with you. But just so you know, I'm not so good at wizarding games."

After the game rules was explained to her she quickly learned it and did, much to her own surprise, enjoy the game. 50 minutes later, Blaise said that they probably should go down to meet the others and go to the Great Hall for the ceremony.

As they walked towards the Great Hall she wondered how the sorting ceremony would be. Would they do a test, get sorted and then get a mentor? Maybe they had a sorting hat here too?

When they walked into the great hall she noticed that it was very different from Hogwarts Great Hall. The room was for one smaller, which was understandable since it went fewer students here, and instead of four long tables, there were many small tables. Most of the tables were in the size so you could sit 6 or 8 at each table. But there were a few 4 and 2 seat tables.

She followed Blaise into the room but instead of sitting with him, Draco and the other Slytherin students she sat down next to the Gryffindors'. When the room was full, the Headmistress Mrs. Nord stood up and started talking. To make a long speech short she said that they ceremony would take place after the meal and that the Institutes representatives and the Hogwarts students would come up to the podium after lunch were finished.

She turned her head down to her plate and saw that a menu had arrived. She looked at it with a confused look and then remembering how they had ordered food at the Yule bale. When she looked through the food on today's lunch menu, she didn't recognize anything and assumed that it was Scandinavian food. On the menu were meatballs with mashed potatoes, something called 'Sill', which she guessed was a fish and something called 'pyttipanna' with eggs. She decided to take pyttipanna, said it out loud and seconds later a plate stood on before her. Apparently pyttipanna were fried onions, potatoes and meat chopped in small pieces. She concluded that it couldn't taste bad since it was only nice stuff in the dish, and when she tried it she discovered that she was right.

When she had finished most of the other students in the Hall had eaten up and was talking to each other while they waited for the ceremony. A couple of minuteslater Mrs. Nord stood up and asked for the students attention. "Can all students in the exchange program come up on the podium please?" she continued. "Hogwarts students can stand on the left and Aradia students' stands on the left" She said, to make it clearer for the 40 students that were walking towards her.

Hermione felt a little nervous as she stood next to Parvati at the podium ,who seemed nervous too since she was talking in a calming voice to herself.

"To my students, I would like to introduce you all to Mr. Dumbledore, the Head Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Mrs. Nord began.

Hermione looked at the students at the other side of the podium and her eyes were drawn to a boy that looked a little like Malfoy. The boy had curly blond hair instead of straight and he was slightly shorter. He was also more tanned and amazingly blue eyes. The rumor about Swedes being beautiful was not an exaggeration. He looked like an angel! Before she could think more nice thoughts about the boy Mrs. Nord interrupted her thoughts with her clear voice.

"We have three Houses here, compared to your four at Hogwarts. The Houses are: Fox, Bear and Reindeer. They each represent a few characteristics a student has. The Fox is stubborn and quick-witted. The Bear is protecting and explosive and the Reindeer is thoughtful and persevering. All Houses are equals. Which color the Houses have will you mentor tell you." She said to the Hogwarts students, going through the information rather quickly, eager to continue.

"Normally when we decide which house a scholar is going to be in, every student does a simple test. But since you are only going to be in the House temporary…" She said, speaking once again to Hermione's side of the podium. "… Me and Mr. Dumbledore talked this morning and I asked him to describe each of you and then we decided together which House you would suit best in. Thereafter I paired you with a mentor from the same House that I felt you would thrive with. Let's begin!" She looked down at the parchment in her hands and read:

"Julia Andersson, Bear."Then Dumbledore read: "Parvati Patil". The two girls walked to the middle of the podium as they had been called, greeted each other and started walking down from the podium and out through the hall. They continued to call some Slytherins and Rawenclavs, then she heard Blaise's name. He had been paired up with a guy called Tristan Styglare and had sorted to Reindeer. He gave her a small smile before walkning away with his mentor.

After Blaise, Lavender and a girl called Ofelia Arnaldsdottir, Bear, got paired up. She thought that Gryffindor and Bear valued similar things and assumed that all Gryffindors' would be Bears. Dean got paired up with a cute guy that was called Artur, Bear of course, and then it was Draco's turn. Draco got paired up with the guy, Gabryel Lindgren, she had compared him with earlier. It was no surprise that he had been sorted Fox. Two more names were called up and then she heard Mrs. Nord call Ellinor Atterling, Fox and saw a tall blond girl walking over, she couldn't analyze more about her before she heard Mr. Dumbledore call her own name. She walked forward, greeted the pretty girl and started following her down the stairs and out of the Hall.

She had been sorted Fox instead of Bear? She was the only Gryffindor that was sorted as Fox. But when she thought about it, it made sense. She was, after all, very stubborn and quick-witted..

As she walked behind Ellinor Atterling she watched her closer. She was very tall, Hermione would guess at 1.80 m, had thick, slightly curly golden-blond hair, blue eyes, naturally pink lips and marked cheekbones. She was very good-looking and Hermione guessed that she had a lot of guys admiring her.

"So, where do you want do begin the tour of the castle Miss. Atterling?" Hermione asked politely, just to break the awkward silence.

"Please call me Ellinor, or Ellie if you want. Ellinor can be quite hard to say in English, since it's the Swedish pronunciation of Eleanor." Ellinor said and smiled, "And what I would like to start with showing you would probably be my common room. Then maybe the library and then the lake" Hermione lit up at when Ellinor mentioned the library.

As they walked around the school they talked about themselves Hermione realized that they were quite similar and had found out a lot about Ellinor. She knew that Ellie lived in Sweden, in a suburb to Stockholm - the Swedish capital - when she wasn't at school, had a younger sister called Louise, didn't have a boyfriend (though that part had surprised her) and she loved to read.

"This is maybe going to sound a bit weird…" Hermione started

"Go for it!" Ellinor said clapping her hands curiously. She had that kind of personality that bubbled with energy in a girly way, and seemed to be the kind of girl that shrieked a lot when she got happy or excited

"Why don't you have a boyfriend? I mean, you are very pretty and I bet there are a lot of guys that would want to have you as a girlfriend."

"Oh, that's quite simple," she said matter of factly. "There are a few handsome guys here"… A few Hermione thought? Ellie had definitely been in Sweden too long. **All **thepupils here were handsome, or at least pretty! "… but the problem is that I am quite tall, and there are only a few guys tall enough for me. Oh, and when you started talking about the subject. Tell me about that handsome blond guy, Drake something that got paired up with Gabryel!" Ellinor said waiving her hand dismissively at the fact that she couldn't remember his name.

To her own surprise, Hermione felt a stung in her chest as she started talking about Malfoy.


	12. Chapter 12: The first touch

**A/N: The Twelfth chapter and they are still on the first day at Aradia. **

**Just so you know, I'm updating as fast as I can, but at the moment, I do have a lot in school and school always comes first. Sorry!**

As Grabryel showed Draco around the castle, Draco learned a lot about him. The first was that, Gabryel had the same interests as him. He liked Quidditch, and to being rude to people was another interest they shared. Gabryel was a pureblood and valued it high, but he didn't have anything against muggleborns. Gabryel was like the Swedish version of himself.

When Draco told Gabryel about him and told him why his parents had named him Draco, (his Father had a burning interest for Dragons) Gabryel interrupted and said that his parents had named him Gabryel after the angel in the bible, just because he looked like an angel when he was born with his blond hair and blue eyes. It was kind of funny that Gabryel's parents had named him after an angel, when he acted like anything but.

When Gabryel had completed their tour around the castle, Draco slowly headed toward his room. Classes wouldn't start until tomorrow and he had a lot of time to spend before dinner, so maybe he could do some reading or maybe write letters to Mother and Pansy. When he opened the door to his room, he saw that Thomas already was there.

" Thomas." Draco greeted him

"Malfoy." Thomas politely replied with a smile. "You know, I hate it when people in my own age call me by my last name, so please call me Dean?"

"Okay…Dean. You can call me Draco" Dean smiled as an answer and continued to write what looked to be a letter. He was just about to start writing a letter himself when the door opened and Granger and was he assumed to be her mentor entered the room.

"Granger?" "Hermione?"

The two boys uttered at the same time.

"Erm, well I came just too introduce you to Ellinor" She said, looking at Draco. "And to you too of couse" this time watching Dean.

"Hellu, my name is Ellinor" Ellinor said, walking towards Draco, reached out a hand and shake his hand. When he said his name, she turned to Dean, froze and then continued, looking a bit embarrassed.

"Hi, Ellinor" She said this time, a bit shy. When Dean greeted her, she gave him a big smile and started talking about Hogwarts, which led to Draco and Hermione staring at each other.

"Why did you want Ellinor to meet me?" Draco asked very curios. Granger blushed and stuttered.

"Errrrr, well, I-I actually used her as an excuse. I kind of t-thought that it was time to forgive y- you" He gave her a genuine smile, glad she wanted to forgive him. He had missed her, not that he ever would say it, not even to Blaise.

"Great and I will try not to say it to you again" When Hermione smiled and walked closer he just stared at her _"Why is she coming closer?"_ he thought. When it was less than 10 cm between them she raised her arms and gave him a hug. He got so shocked that she actually hugged him that he just stood there. Girls didn't really hug him that often, mostly because he never allowed them too. He didn't like the clingy ones, and most of the girls he had dated were. But when Granger hugged him it was kind of nice. When she took a step back, she smiled at him a little and told Ellinor that they probably should go. Ellinor gave Dean a hungry look, that Draco supposed wasn't her first one, told them good bye and followed Granger out the door. What was it with girls here in Sweden and hungry looks?

He heard the girls giggle down the stairs and finally walked over to his bed, unfolded two parchments and wrote a letter to his Mother and one to Pansy. When he was done writing he started his walk to the owlery where he had his own owl Viper. On his way there, he got a lot of glances from the Swedish girls and felt his ego grow ten times bigger. Draco Malfoy was in ego-heaven!

**ooo**

All Ellie talked about for their walk to the Fox common room, where they were supposed to meet Ellie's friends, was Dean. How cute he was, that he seemed like a nice guy, that he had the cutest dimples she'd ever seen, his curly hair, well she talked about everything. They reached the common room and Ellie stopped talking about Dean, to say the password, "_Jelly Beans" _and then to continue chattering about Dean. When she saw her friends she gave a shriek and dragged Hermione to the table her friends sat at.

When they heard their friends shriek, they all looked up from their homework excitedly. She figured that Ellie and her friends were like a mix between herself and Parvati and Lavender.

"Hola, my dear friends" Ellie began. "Let me introduce you to my, hm… British?... and friend Hermione." She heard a hi from the girls

"Hermione" Ellie continued "this is Karolina, Pauline, and I guess you already know Vera" Ellie said, pointing at different girls and lastly at the Head Girl.

"Yes, I do." Hermione said smiling politely at the girls.

"Girls…" Ellie said, pointing at Hermione to sit down at the last armchair. " I have something to tell you." The girls listened carefully, sensing that their friend had something important to say. "I have just found the perfect guy for me!" Ellinor declared.

"Oh, who who who!" the girl called Pauline said, very excited knowing how rare that statement was coming from Ellie.

"Hermione's friend, Dean Thomas, he is perfect, he is tall, great personality and nice looking, what more can you ask for?" Ellie said, the other girls nodding to agree with her. Hermione had been right about that Ellie was a mix of herself and Parvati/Lavender. But she liked Ellie anyway so, the gossiping part was just to accept.

"Who except me is perfect?" Hermione heard a guy say two tables away. They all looked up and saw Draco's mentor Gabryel Something, looking at them.

"Oh, Gabryel, stop being so full of yourself" Ellie smirked at him. From what Hermione had thought, Gabryel was Aradia's Sexgod, like Draco were Hogwarts. So she thought it was kind of amusing that Ellie didn't seem to like him in that way. The other girls at the table, even Vera, shot glances at him, glances that showed that they thought he was perfect.

"Ellie, Ellie, Ellie... The only reason why you don't think that I am perfect is because you are my cousin." Gabryel said, with a serious look at his face. Merlin that boy had good ego. He and Draco was a perfect match. "Hmmm" Hermione thought, that explained it all!

"That's probably true!" Ellie said and then turned to continue talking to her friends again, but found them lost in thoughts - or more like it, lost in watching her cousin, so she once again dragged Hermione out of the common room and this time into what had to be Ellie's room.

The room looked exactly like Draco and Dean's except it had a girly touch.

"So can you tell me something about the houses?" Hermione asked.

"Of course. There is not that much more to know actually. Fox, our house, has the color red and silver, hence the colors in our room. Bear has yellow and gold and Reindeer has bronze and beige/cream. Sometimes we have classes with other houses but mostly we are by ourselves. Each house has a Quidditch team and a brolo team.."

"Excuse me" Hermione began "Brolo? What's that?"

"Oh right! We only play Brolo in Scandinavia! You are a muggleborn right?" At Hermione nod, she spoke again. "It's like Horse polo, except it's played on brooms, hence the name Brolo. It's really funny actually!" She said, at Hermione's glance.

"We are allowed to go to Kittelby the day after tomorrow, and then we buy you new clothes" Ellie said, thinking loudly. Why had she'd been given a mentor, that when it came to clothes, where exactly as Ginny?


	13. Chapter 13: Head Mistress knickers

**A/N: After a tough beginning of the week with math homework, quizzes, a seminar, a presentation and an essay I reward myself to write in the middle of the week, so I hope that you will enjoy the chapter! **

**And thanks to my lovely friend, co-trainer and beta FreakyElla! **

The day after the arrival Hermione woke up excited. It was today the classes began! She got up, got dressed in a black just above the knee dress. She enjoyed the last day that she could dress as she liked before having to dress in the Institutes dress code. When she was done brushing her teeth she walked into the common room and found Blaise waiting there for her.

"Shall we head down to the Great Hall?" He asked instead of greeting her Good morning.

"Sure, did you sleep well?" Hermione asked as they walked out from their section.

Still talking they walked into the Great Hall to see that it was almost empty. There were a few students from Aradia in the Hall and only one from Hogwarts. The platinum blond hair was not hard to miss and when Blaise started walking towards his best friend Hermione quickly followed. As they came closer, Malfoy looked up and greeted them with a nod.

Hermione took a seat next to Blaise at the four seat table and looked at the menu in front of her. She could choose between a mixed omelet, yogurt with berries or muesli or, pancakes and a sandwich with optional toppings. She saw the omelet Malfoy ate, and then spoke loudly, and said

"A mixed omelet" Five seconds later, they omelet stands before her.

"So are you excited about the classes?" She asked

"Err, no?" Blaise said "It's the same ones that we have at Hogwarts."

"Expecone." Malfoy said with his mouth full.

"Sorry didn't catch that?" Blaise said.

"Except one" Malfoy said, after swallowing. "Gabryel, my mentor" he explained. "Told me yesterday that they have all the classes we have except one. They apparently have one class here called 'Survival class'"

"What do you do in that class?" They heard a girl's voice behind them. They all looked up and saw Olympia Watson standing a few meters away from their table, giving Hermione evil glances. "Why are you sitting here Granger?" She continued very rudely.

"Watson, if you don't want to sit with Hermione, you could just sit at another table" Malfoy said, explaining Watson's two choices for her. Hermione was so surprised that Malfoy had called her Hermione that she ignored Watson and just stared at him. Did he really call her by her first name? Blaise seemed a bit shocked too, but then repeated Watson's question.

"Apparently you learn about the surrounding nature and how to survive of it. Sometime in the course, most commonly in the winter, you get paired up with someone from class and then kicked out in the cold for a whole weekend where you are supposed to remember what you have learned and survive in the wilderness." Draco answered

"Oh no, that seems totally horrific!" Watson shrieked. Herself, Hermione thought that if you got paired up with the right person, it could actually be quite fun! She had always liked the camping life and had camped a lot with her parents before she went to Hogwarts.

When she had finished her breakfast she excused herself and started to walk towards the table were Ellie sat and they decided that Ellie would meet her outside the Great Hall in 30 minutes and walk her to Potions. "Potions." Hermione thought "Would probably be a lot more fun here when Snape wasn't the teacher!"

**ooo**

After a long day with classes Draco was totally drained. If he could decide, he would take a long bath and then go to bed and maybe read something. But Gabryel had ordered him to get to the Foxes common room at 8 pm . So that was where he was headed at the moment. After telling the password to the painting he walked in to the common room and searched for his mentor.

"Draco, over here!" He heard his mentor call from across the room. "I'm glad you came!" He said with a big smile. "I'd like to introduce you to some of my friends. Draco, this is Philemon and Joel." Draco greeted each of them with a nod.

The biggest difference between Hogwarts and Aradia was not the language, the surroundings or the classes, it was the fact that here in Sweden, everyone called each other by their first name, even the teachers called students by their first names. So it was not a surprise to him when Phillemon and Joel started calling him by his first name.

"So Draco, you might wonder why we asked you here tonight." Phillemon said. "I and Joel are in the exchange program as well, and our exchange friends will come here soon." he said at Draco's glance "We have decided to play a little game tonight." he finished with a leer.

"And here comes our friends" Joel said, looking at the door. Through the portrait Anthony Goldstein and another Rawenclaw came, looked around and then started walking toward their table. When the three mentors had explained their plan to the other boys Draco asked;

"And what exactly are we playing?" Draco asked, always in a mood for a good game.

"We had planned to play a muggle game called truth and dare" Draco who had played the game before wondered if there would be some girls joining or otherwise he would defiantly not be playing. But he never got the chance to ask before Gabryel spoke again.

"And here comes the girls" Draco looked at the direction Gabryel looked and saw that the girls were Ellinor, Hermione, Tracey Davis, Parvati Patil and two other girls that must be Tracey's and Patil's mentors.

"Welcome ladies!" Gabryel announced when they stood by their table. "Are you ready for some Truth and Dare?" He asked?

"Ellie!" Draco heard Hermione shriek. "You told me that we were just going to play cards!"

"Well, I lied, or otherwise you would never have come." Ellie said with a little smirk. Hermione gave Ellie an angry look before she sat down next to Draco.

"Are we going to play here?" Tracey asked, looking a bit uncomfortable.

"Nope" one of the two girls that Draco did not know the name of said. "We are going to play in my and Ellie's room, so let's go!"

15 minutes later the game had got passed that awkward few truths and dares and everybody started to loosen up. At the moment Patil had just made her dare and looked around in the room to chose someone to ask truth or dare too.

"Malfoy" he heard her say. "Truth or dare?" He thought about it for a while and then decided for dare.

"Okay" Patil said with an evil smirk. "I dare you to sneak in to the Head Mistress room and bring a pair of her knickers back with you."

"Ohhhhhh" he could here the other say and looked up and caught Hermione's glance. She looked like expected. Amused and a bit concerned.

"Just one problem there, Patil… I have no clue where Mrs. Nord has her quarters, and I doubt that I know the password." Draco said, feeling a bit angry at himself that he had not come up with that dare earlier.

"Oh I think I can help you with those two small trifles." Joel said.

"You can?" Gabryel asked shocked.

"I matter of fact can. I was there earlier today… "When he had said that, a lovely magenta color colored his cheeks"… I had some things that I needed to talk to Mrs. Nord with." He explained to the group. "I'll take you."

After walking in five minutes of silence Joel stopped in front of a small statue of a beautiful woman that Joel said were Aradia and then said clearly;

"Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is enlightenment."

Apparently it had been a password because a hidden door next to the statue opened and showed a small dark hallway.

"Go straight forward to the common room and then the first door to the left is her bedroom."

"Okay, thanks" Draco said, remembering to ask Joel exactly how he knew where his Head Mistress bedroom lay.

He walked into the dark room and tip toed into the common room. He did not see the Head Mistress but he assumed that she was in here somewhere. When he looked around he saw that the room was cozy with a rounded ceiling and a fireplace. He saw the first door to the left, looked around properly again before quick walking to the door and peaked inside. Empty. He opened the door to her bedroom and heard the sound of the shower and guessed that that's where Mrs. Nord where. Walking fast through the room towards her chest of drawer and opened the first of four drawer only to found Mrs. Nord's collection of t-shirts. In the second drawer he found pants, in the third one he found socks and bras but no panties. "Merlin, where does she have her fucking knickers?" he thought for himself when he opened the fourth drawer only to found nightgowns.

He stepped away from the chest of drawers and looked around. That was when he heard Mrs. Nord turn of her shower.

"Fuck, he could not get caught now!" Quick, he rushed over to the bed and threw himself underneath it. Lucky for him, her covers almost touched the floor. Five seconds after he'd placed himself under the bed, Mrs. Nord came out from the bathroom with only a towel around her. For being 30-40 years old, she did definitely have good legs! Mrs. Nord walked first to the chest of drawers, picked a purple nightgown and then headed towards the beds bedside table and picked out a pair of panties.

"That's where she's hiding them!" Draco thought. Still in her towel, she walked over to her desk and started writing at a parchment. When something rubbed itself to his left arm, he had to use all of his willpower not to shout out in surprise, but couldn't help to let out a little sound. He quickly looked to his left and saw a big, fluffy cream colored cat look at him with its big blue eyes and then he looked back to Mrs. Nord who looked suspiciously around the room.

"Orion?" She asked. When Draco did nothing to the cat, it lost it interest in him and walked towards its owner when it heard her call its name. "You scared me Orion!" She said, picking up the cat.

Much to his pleasure she took her clothes from the desk, dropped Orion and walked into the bathroom and closed the door again.

Quickly, he crawled out of his hiding place, grabbed the first pair of knickers that he could find and then rushed out to the corridor where Joel where waiting for him. He showed Joel the pair of knickers and them they both walked happily back, Draco telling him about his adventure.

When he opened the door to Ellie's room he had in mind that the others would be interested in hearing why it had taken so long time. But he soon discovered that they had continued playing the game as if he hadn't left at all, and no wonder why.

Draco froze in his tracks. Right in front of him Gabryel and Granger were in full snogging mode while the rest of the crowd cheered them on.

**A/N: The quote that is used as password for Mrs. Nord's quarters is from Lao Tzu. **

**Please leave a comment about what you thought of the chapter!**


	14. Chapter 14: An unexpected realisation

**A/N: I'm glad that many of you liked the previous chapter! So here comes the follow up! And thanks for the reviews I got on chapter 13 :D  
>Thanks to FreakyElla and ThreeUnicorns. You two in school equals never boring!<strong>

_16__th__ November_

Draco stared at the couple snogging in front of him. He could literary feel the anger bubbling up inside of him. But it was not only anger, it was something more, a feeling he could not really describe. He felt how Joel put his hand on his shoulder for support and understood that he had let his guard down. Fuck! He cringed to get rid of Joel's hand. He did not want his pity. He threw the knickers in his hand into the room before angrily walking away. He ignored the steps that followed him until he had walked around the castle for about ten minutes.

"What?" He said, turning around and to no surprise he found Joel to be his follower.

"Draco…" He began. "Are you okay?" Draco could hear the concern in his voice. Why was Joel being nice to him? He had only known him for about an hour and the feeling that he could not find a good word for grew worse when Joel showed his concern.

"Yes, yes I'm fine" He said, trying to calm down. He didn't really know why he'd become so angry. Hermione could kiss anyone she wanted. Wait, had he just called Granger Hermione?

"No, you're not." Joel interrupted his thoughts. "I know how it is to be unhappily in love." He said sincerely.

"Wait, in love? I'm not in love with Granger!" Draco blurted

"Maybe not, yet. But you certainly like her or otherwise you wouldn't have acted this way. It all starts with denial Draco."

"Well, if you are the expert on unhappy love, then who are you so madly in love with?" He said coldly.

"You of anyone should be able to figure it out"

At that statement Draco started to think, unhappy love. That meant that you either couldn't be with the person you loved and watched the person from distance, or your love was inappropriate but returned but you could never be together. It could be Ellie. They could not be together because Ellie did not love him, she was clearly into Dean. Then it hit him like a thunderbolt.

"Y-you are in love with Mrs. Nord?" He asked skeptically, so surprised by his realization that he stuttered.

"Yes, unfortunately I am. Did you not wonder how I knew where her bedroom was in her accommodations?" he said with a little smirk on his face.

"The others, Gabryel and Phillemon, they do not know about this do they?"

"No they don't. And I would appreciate if you didn't tell anyone." Joel said honestly.

"I won't" Draco said sincerely. He didn't really know why he said he wouldn't tell anyone, maybe it was because Joel had decided to be honest with him, or the unnamed feeling in his chest.

"Good, because otherwise I would tell the whole school that you love Hermione." Joel teased.

"I'm not in love with Granger."

"Yes you are." repeating those fraises they eventually said "Good night" before heading for their own rooms for a good night sleep.

**ooo**

The next morning, Draco woke with the odd feeling still in his chest. When he walked into the Great Hall, he saw Hermione waved eagerly at him with a bright smile. He could not really deal with her right now. He sat down at an empty table, ignoring the hurt look on Granger's face. He had just ordered a plate of blueberry pancakes when his peace was disturbed by a very happy voice.

"Good Morning my beloved British friend!" Gabryel's said. Draco did not really want to talk to his mentor right now either but nodded at him when Gabryel greeted him.

"And why are you in such a bad mood today Draco?" Gabryel's good mood started to get on Draco's nerves and instead of answering the question he asked coldly.

"Did you enjoy yesterday evening?

"Yesterday evening… What did I do yesterday evening? The Truth and Dare game, right! Aha, you mean the kiss with Hermione?" Gabryel asked.

"Yes."

"Well, it was kind of nice, she is a good kisser…" Gabryel must of seen how Draco's glance darkened at those word and continued the sentence "…but she's not really my type." when Draco's glance became lighter he once again continued "I prefer blond girls. Like the one I just asked out this morning and, to my pleasure, said yes. But on second thoughts, who would reject me?" Gabryel asked himself seriously.

"So you don't like Granger?"

"Nope, she's all yours" Gabryel declared.

"I don't like Granger" Draco snapped.

"Well if you say so…" Gabryel said, with a mischievous look in his eyes that Draco did not like at all.

**ooo**

Today was her first day at Survival class and the only person she knew in this class was Malfoy. She'd been really hurt when he'd sat down at another table. It was not the fact that he'd choose to sit self rather than with her that had hurt her the most. It was the look in his face when he had looked at her that had made her want to cry. He had looked at her like she'd disgusted him. So when he took the seat next to her, she had continued looking in the book she'd borrowed from Ellie and ignored him.

"How are you feeling today, Granger? Draco asked a bit too cheerfully.

"Well, the day started wonderfully. Then at breakfast you neglected me, then my mood took a sharp turn and now I am in an awful mode. Thanks for asking." She said frightfully.

"Well, I had a bad morning and it had nothing to do with you, so don't worry." Draco said, smiling at her. Hermione didn't really think that that was the truth, but she accepted the almost apology.

"So do you think this class will be interesting?" She asked

"It could be, but I'm not the kind of person who camps, so that will be a new experience for me." He said truly.

"You're going to do well, just listen during class." Hermione said

The teacher entered the classroom and started walking up to the teacher's desk at the front in the room.

"I see that we have two new students here in class. My name is Alicia Sorensen, but you can call me Ms. Alicia like the other students. I figure your mentors' has explained the purpose of this class?"

"Yes, they have." Hermione said, thinking back on the day before when Ellie had told her everything she needed to know about the subject.

"Great, miss..?"

"Granger, Hermione Granger. And this is Draco Malfoy"

"Lovely Hermione and Draco, let's start class." Ms. Alicia said as she started writing on the board.

The class turned out to be very interesting and they learned a lot about the nature and climate in upper Sweden. After class she and Malfoy had a livid discussion about the class while entering the Great Hall for lunch. They saw Ellie, Joel and Gabryel at one table and headed towards it. When they saw Hermione and Draco coming closer, they leaned closer and started whispering about something before they leaned back in their chairs and smiled at them, all of them looking suspiciously mischievous.

"Why do they look at us like that?" Hermione asked Draco.

"I don't know, but I don't like it!"

"Neither do I, neither do I…"

"Why do you look at us like that?" Hermione asked the small group when they sat down at the empty chairs around the table.

"Like what?" Gabryel said, looking even more mischievous.

"You are so annoying." Hermione blurted out. When she had said that, she looked up and her glance got caught with Malfoys. He looked at her with an amused and pleased look at his face.

"Do you know what they talked about?" She asked him.

"Oh, he knows what we were talking about, he just don't won't to admit it to himself." Joel said with a smirk.

Draco quickly changed the subject, but Hermione sat quiet and thought about what Joel had said. Draco did not want to admit it to himself. She could only come up with one possible thought that matched what Joel had said. But it couldn't be true, right? Draco Malfoy, could not possibly like her, Hermione, a Gryffindor, could he?


	15. Chapter 15: Circle of Trust

**A/N: I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who read my fanfiction! If you want tips of two really good fanfics you should look up my two friends Freakyella and Threeunicorns fanfics. They are both really good, though Threeunicorns don't update very often (UPDATE KARRO!). So don't hesitate to click into their fanfics! And as always, thanks to Freakyella!**

**And I don't really think that you should complain on my updates, I update once or twice a week. I think that is pretty good!**

After lunch the school had arranged an extra trip to Kittelby. So after a pleasant lunch she and Ellie went to their rooms to grabb their coats before walking towards the small village. When they arrived, Hermione saw that Kittleby was a very cozy, small town, there would be a trip to Kittelby in two weeks, and today they just had time to go to the seamstress, but Hermione guessed she would find a lot of interesting shops here. Ellie told her that the red houses with white corners were typical Swedish and most of the older houses up in the north had this exterior.

They had walked about two blocks before Ellie roughly dragged her into a little shop that had that was named "Aunt Cassandra's witches-robes". Spending time with Ellie definitely meant that you got a lot of bruises.

Hermione looked around the small shop, in the bottom floor there was one , as she could see, big room that the buyers was allowed in. It had a little podium that the buyer was supposed to stand on and a little desk with a cash register against the north wall.

There was a stair that led to the second storey and upstairs it looked like it was a small room with different fabrics.

"Hello Ellinor and who is your friend?" They heard a soft voice call from upstairs and a petite woman stepped outside the small room and headed down towards them.

"Good Afternoon Aunt Cassandra! This is my friend Hermione, she's from Hogwarts." Ellie explained to the woman. Cassandra was about 45 years old and was quite beautiful for being middle-aged.

"Oh, how wonderful! I went to Hogwarts too dear, but then I met my husband and he wanted to live in Sweden. My guess is that you want proper clothes and since you are here with Ellinor, I assume you're a Fox. You can step up on the podium while I collect the right fabrics." Aunt Cassandra said, not letting Hermione or Ellie talk.

As Cassandra had disappeared up the stairs, Ellie spoke with a little smile.

"She sure likes to talk that woman"

An hour later, Hermione's wardrobe had grown quite a bit. The new additions were one red velvet skirt, one black velvet skirt, on black pleated skirt, one grey (it was the closet to silver they could find without turning her to a disco ball) pleated skirt, two white blouses, one black, one red, four pair of black stockings, one obligatory black fitted blazer with the Fox badge embodied on the left side, a pair of red gloves, a pair of winter shoes and one new black coat with fur around the hood. The coat was a "must have" as Ellie had described it. It would keep her warm in the winter and was very modern!

As they walked out the small shop they bumped into Dean and his mentor Artur and since Ellie occupied Dean, she was left with Artur. But after getting over the awkward beginning, Hermione actually enjoyed his company and when they arrived at the Institute she and Dean told their mentors good bye and headed towards their section with all their new clothes.

"What do you think Ellie thinks of me?" Dean asked her.

"Erm…" Hermione began, thinking about all the times Ellie had talked about Dean "… I think she likes you." She said. At those words Dean looked very happy and then changed into a subject.

**ooo**

As the weeks passed by, Draco and the other Hogwarts students all started the feel more at home in the castle and in the end of November, the first snow singled down from the sky. They had grown accustomed to the food, the temperature – that was always colder than in Britain – and to the new school. The only thing that Draco did not accustom to was the Fox clothes. He did, like all the other scholars, have to wear a blazer. But it was not the black blazer he had a problem with. It was the fact that he had to wear red. He had one red jumper, one red shirt and a pair of red pants (red pants was in some absurd way very popular in Scandinavia). Sometimes when all of his other clothes needed to be washed he had to wear them.

Today was a day like that. When Gabryel had said that he could go to Kittelby and order some clothes to Draco he had happily accepted. He'd had a homework to finish and the trip would have cost him some precious time so he had just handed Gabryel his measures. But when he returned he brought red ones, much to Draco's dismay.

When he wore red, both Granger and Blaise teased him for wearing Gryffindor clothes and he did not like being teased! At the moment, he and Granger made their Survivals homework in the library and Granger had just teased him, so the mood at the table was quite tense.

"Hello there fellows!" They heard a glad voice call out and saw that Joel headed towards them. His usually straight dark-blonde hair now carried, maybe, eight small ponytails.

"What have you done to your hair?" Draco asked aghast

"My hair? What is it with my hair?" he asked worriedly. Hermione conjured a mirror and gave it to him.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Joel screamed at the site of himself. He was very fond of his hair and did not like it when anybody touched it.

"Who did this to you? Hermione asked while trying to stifle her laughter.

"My evil little sister Julia." Joel said "She's so getting back for this!" Then he opened his book and started reading.

When Draco looked up he found Granger looking intensely at him. When he gave her a questioning glance she blushed and looked down at her book again.

He drifted away in his thoughts about Granger and started thinking about how much their relationship had developed since school began. They had gone from being enemies to good friends in just two short months.

Since they arrived at Aradia, they had begun to spend a lot of time together each day. They ate all meals together with Blaise and their three mentors, had some classes together, studied in the library together and at the evenings Draco, Blaise and Hermione always sat in the Heads common room talking, reading or playing games.

He liked her company and he cringed a little when he realized that he had started to care about her. She had become one of the persons that Draco actually liked and could be himself with. Gabryel, Joel and Ellie had also become important persons of his life and he felt happy that his small circle of trust had grown so that four more people could fit into it!


	16. Chapter 16: Babysitting

_**A/N: Remember, broolo = horse polo on brooms!**_

_1 December_

This morning Hermione ate her breakfast as usual with Malfoy, Blaise, Joel, and Gabryel. Ellie had ditched them for eating with Dean who she at the moment flirted unbridled with. She smiled a little at her two friends before she turned to Malfoy and asked with a soft voice:

"Malfoy, can you send me the marmalade please?"

"Why do you and Draco call each other by your last names?" Gabryel asked. "I know that you do it in Britain with people you don't know very well, but you two are friends!"

"Fine…" Hermione said, too tired to argue with Gabryel "… Draco, can you send me the marmalade please?" She found that his name rolled nicely on her tongue.

"Here you go, Hermione." Mal-Draco said with an emphasis on Hermione. When he said her name she felt an odd, but warm and fuzzy feeling erupt in her stomach. Almost sensing the perplexed expression she was supporting she turned down and took the jar and focused on her marmalade-sandwich. The guys quickly started talking about broolo, they had seen their first match yesterday and Hermione had found herself to enjoy the game, much more than Quidditch!

"Excuse me, could I have everyone's attention please?" They heard a strict voice call out. All the students in the room turned their heads toward the teachers table from where the voice had came. They saw Mrs. Nord stand up, and for once, looking quite happy. It was not only Hermione who noticed the happy look on the Head Mistress.

"I don't think I have ever seen her so happy." Gabryel said. Joel leaned his head closer to Hermione's ear and whispered "I have." with a smirk. Joel had told her about his little affair with the Head Mistress about a week ago and to her own surprise she had found that she thought it was kind of funny that Joel was Mrs. Nord's little "crush". Their personalities, as Hermione knew, had absolutely nothing in common. The funniest part was that Joel actually seemed to like her.

"I am glad to tell you that we have found a proper teacher for Charms-class" Mrs. Nord said, talking loud and clear so the whole hall would here. "Let me introduce you for your new charms-teacher…" Mrs. Nord continued pointing at middle-aged, handsome of course, man at the end of the teachers table, next to Dumbledore.

"He does look nice!" Joel said, still having his head close to hers. "Ops, looks like Draco doesn't like me to be so close to his soon-to-be girlfriend." he said as he saw the death glares Draco was sending him and returned to lean back, comfortable in his chair.

"Don't you start too!" Hermione said, thinking about all the times this week Ellie had said that Draco liked her. Joel smirked at her but the smirk soon washed when he heard Mrs. Nord finishing with her introduction of the new teacher:

"… My husband, Mr. Elliot Nord."

Now, instead of smirking, he looked like someone had told him his cat had been run-over.

"Hey, Joel, do you feel alright?" Gabryel asked his best friend with concern in his voice "You look like you did when you and Rebecka broke up." he said with a little chuckle, but quickly stopped when Hermione shoot him a glance that would have made Lord Voldemort proud.

"I-I'm just going to take some air." Joel

"I'll think that I'm going to go check on him." Hermione said, after two awkward minutes

"I'll go with you." Draco said and gave her a smile that gave her cheeks a light blush, luckily it was no one who saw.

**ooo**

After a few minutes searching they found Joel sitting, curled up like a ball with his back against them, on a bench looking out at the rainy schoolyard.

He didn't turn when they walked closer but asked with an unsteady voice

"W-what do you want?"

"Just to make sure that you are okay." Hermione said with a soft, comforting voice simultaneously as she walked over and dropped to the floor so she had her head at the same height as Joel had. She gave Draco a nod that showed him that he would sit down next to their friend and when he did what she wanted, he saw that Joel had tear stains on his cheeks. Draco really wasn't big fan of tears. Father had always told him that Malfoy's didn't cry, hence he felt uncomfortable with people showing strong emotions in public.

"Well, I'm not, so can you just leave me alone?" Joel answered Hermione's question.

"It won't help you know." Draco surprised himself to say.

"What?"

"Shutting your friends out." He meet Hermione's glance and he knew that it was she was surprised that he had said it. He never shared any of his problems with anyone. It was his father's fault that he was too proud to let anyone help him. He didn't even confess his problems to Blaise and Pansy. They had to force it out of him, so they would know how to help him.

"Exactly." Hermione said, still looking a bit shocked about what he had said. She stepped up from the floor and sat down on the other side of Joel.

"You know, everything is going to be just fine." Hermione said as she put her arms around him and gave Joel a hug. He let her fuss him over and rested his head against Hermione's shoulder and soon Draco could see new tears rolling down.

"Maybe we should move to a more private place?" Draco asked, still very uncomfortable with Joel's tears. In his opinion, men don't cry in public, but Joel was more opened minded than Draco ever was going to be. But Draco still thought that Joel did not want the whole school to see that he cried.

After they led Joel to Hermione and Blaise's section, they gave him a bottle of dreamless draught and put him in Hermione's bed (Draco felt like he was Joel's father all the time, a very unpleasant feeling! But Hermione had made him sit there with them till Joel fell asleep) the two friends had seated themselves in one of the couch.

"I think that we should skip classes today and take care of Joel." he heard Hermione said. When he stared at her like she was insane, she continued:

"I know it is irresponsible and that we really should go to class. But I think that it is important for Joel to have us here!" Hermione said. "And I think that if we went to Dumbledore and explained the whole thing, okay, not the whole thing, just the 'Joel is very sad part' and if we studied the same things as in classes, I think that professor Dumbledore would let us stay here. I mean, we are both top-students, it's not like we're going to fail classes just because we stay here in my room."

"You really surprise me sometimes!" Draco said with a genuine smile. "But sure, if you go and ask, I'll babysit."

"Just because you don't want to ask professor Dumbledore…" Hermione muttered as she walked out of the room.

15 minutes later she returned through the door.

"Dumbledore said that if we studied really hard and concentrated, it would be alright for this time. Then he said that it was good that we have become so good friends with the students here. He is talking to our teachers to make sure that they send up the homework after each lesson is finished."

While they waited for their first workload of homework Hermione wrote letters to Potty, Weasel and She-weasel and he read a book he had found in Hermione's room. Nothing special happened until Joel woke up at 5 a.m. and Hermione walked in to talk to him. After 20 minutes she came out and said:

"We're having a sleepover tonight."

"We're what? I haven't been on a sleepover since I was 5!"

"Well tonight you are!" Hermione told him with a stern voice "And now, before dinner, you are going to talk to Gabryel that he has to make sure that Blaise stay's out late so he don't notice you walking into my room with your and Joel's sleep stuff."

"Why do I have to do everything?" He asked angrily.

"Because I think that it would seem a bit weird if I walked into your room and took things from it! And because Gabryel is your friend!" He shot her an evil glance before walking out with angry steps. Half an hour later at dinner he gave her a nod that showed that the things she had ordered was done, then he excused himself from the table, picked up his very full bag and walked out from the Hall.

**Ooo**

"So how are we going to do this?" Hermione asked when it was bedtime. "Do any of you want to sleep at a particular place?"

"Don't take this wrong Joel, but I don't want to sleep next to you, so Hermione, you sleep in the middle."

"Is that okay with you, sweetie?" Hermione asked Joel, taking this "babysitting"-roll very serious. Draco rolled his eyes and when Joel answered "yes" the three of them laid down. Draco was very happy that Hermione's bed was a double, one of the good things with being Head Boy/Girl.

"So what do you want to talk about?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"Talk about?" Joel asked, not as sad anymore as Draco could see.

"When you have a sleepover, you always talk or discuss something before going to bed." Hermione explained.

"Girls do that, not boys!" Draco said, killing the excitement from Hermione's face.

"Well, lets' just sleep then." She said with a slight crestfallen look on her face.

**Ooo**

The next morning, Hermione woke up by a flash filling the room. Closing her eyes hard she snuggled deeper down in her warm cozy bed.

"You two are so cute!" She heard Ellie squeal and tried to look up at her Swedish friend. She found that to be impossible since she was stuck in a tight embrace. She was surprised to found herself being wrapped up by two pale arms. She dared herself to continue looking up and found that her face was very, very close to Malfoy's and felt that under the cover, their legs where entwined. "This was so awkward! She had do move away quick and not wake Malfoy up!" Her thoughts were interrupted by Ellie.

"I'm going to enlarge this picture and hang it up over the fireplace in the common room so everyone can see how cute you are!" She heard Ellie chuckle evilly as she walked out of the room.

"No you're not!" Hermione shrieked, trying to get out of Draco's embrace, only to find that her shriek had woke him up and found him looking first at her, and them past her.

Then she remembered that Joel was also in the bed, she quickly turned and found him sitting up at the edge of the bed smirking down at them.

"Well this definitely cleared my bad mood!"

**A/N: I hope that you like this chapter! Thanks to Freakyella as usual and don't forget to review!**

**Just so you know, the photo Ellie took is a Polaroid-photo! **


	17. Chapter 17: Ellie and Dean

**A/N: R&R****!**

Over the following weeks, the photo of Draco and Hermione had been showed to all of their friends. Gabryel had got a pleased looking smirk on his face when Ellie had showed him the picture at breakfast.

Christmas was coming up and two weeks before Christmas there was a Kittelby visit so that they all could buy their Christmas presents. Hermione was excited for the trip and she longed to just stroll around in the little village and look in all the stores. Ellie had said that there was a very good bookstore there and she couldn't be more thrilled.

The evening before the trip the three Hogwarts friends sat in Hermione and Blaise's room, as usual, and played a game of cards when the door suddenly slammed opened and Ellie literary jumped in. She squealed when she spotted them and threw her arms around the closest person, who happened to be Draco. He did not look entirely pleased when she continued to shriek in his ear that she had two very good news!

"So what are they?" Blaise asked, looking suspicious.

"Okay, the first one is that professor Dumbledore has put up a note that the Hogwarts student and their Aradian mentor are supposed to spend Christmas with the mentors family. And since my family always spends the holiday with Gabryel's family we are all going to spend Christmas together!"

Spending the holiday with Draco, Ellie and Gabryel would definitely be an interesting one. Hermione smiled at her friend and asked:

"That's great news Ellie! So what's the other news?

Ellie released Draco from her hug and jumped to sit next to Hermione with a now very serious look on her face.

"'Mione, I know that I promised that you, me, Draco and Gabryel would all be going together to Kittelby, but Dean just asked me out!" She almost yelled at the last part at the sentence and when Hermione gave a little shriek to show her excitement Ellie gave her a bone-crushing hug.

"Typically girls." she heard Draco say and saw him roll his eyes.

After Ellie had calmed down a bit, she locked at Draco.

"Oh, I almost forgot! Gabryel wants you to go to his room. He had something he had to say to you."

She turned to Hermione again,

"You 'Mione must lend me your deep purple mid-thigh dress, pretty, pretty, pretty please?" She said to Hermione, locking innocent.

"Sure, why not."

"Thanks, you are the best!" Ellie said, gave her friend another hug, walked into Hermione's room and came out later with the dress on her arm.

"Hey, Ellie…"Blaise began "…what does Gabryel think about your little date with Dean?" Knowing that Gabyrel would never approve his dearest cousin going on a date. For being a player Gabryel was very over-protected of Ellie. Gabryel and Ellie where much closer than regular cousins because their twin fathers were best friends, kind of like Fred and George, so they had seen each other every day as kids.

"Err, well, I kind of haven't told Gabryel yet…" She said looking down at her shoes.

"Told me what?" They heard a voice said walking into their common room. A magenta colored blush started to arose on Ellie's checks and she avoided locking up on her cousin.

"Told me what Ellie?" He repeated his question.

"T-that I'm going on a date with Dean tomorrow." She said, giving him her most innocent lock as she could.

"You are going to do what?" He said angrily.

"I'm going with Dean to Kittelby tomorrow…" She said, more confidently this time "… and there's nothing you can do to stop me from doing it!" with those words she walked out of the room signaling for Hermione to follow her.

**ooo**

The day after, Hermione woke up 7 a.m. with Ellie shooking her vehemently and forced Hermione to help her get ready for her date with Dean. Ellie didn't even let them go down and eat breakfast, because that would be waste of important time as Ellie had delicately said, so she had to ask the Fox's house-elf to make them a scrambled eggs-and-bacon breakfast. A quarter to ten Ellie finally though she locked well enough and they made their way down to the entrance hall where Ellie where supposed to meet Dean.

When the girls saw Dean, Hermione gave Ellie a quick good-luck hug before walking over to Draco.

"Good Morning."

"Good Morning Hermione!"

"Where are Gabryel?" She asked Draco, remembering clearly that they had said that they would meet ten to ten in the entrance hall.

"Oh, he decided to ditch us for spying at Ellie." Draco said, clearly thinking it was hilarious.

"He's going to do what? That's so rude of him. It's not like Ellie spies on all the dates he goes to!"

"Don't get mad at me!" Draco defended himself "I'm just repeating my dear mentor. So are you ready to go?" Spending the whole trip at Kittelby alone with Draco was not exactly what she had planned, it could turn out two ways.

They had a really good time

They had a horrible time

Hermione definitely wished to the stars for the first alternative.

After making sure they were allowed to leave the school area they started walking towards the village. Hermione really enjoyed the walk. It was a nice winter-day with the sun shining making the snow glitter and spark like thousands tiny diamonds.

When they arrived to Kittleby they decided that they would go to the bookstore first, then buy some presents and then go and eat lunch.

When they sat down at an empty table at the most nice looking restaurant they could find, an hour later, Hermione had bought presents to her parents, Ron, Harry, Ginny, Dean, Draco, Blaise, Ellie, Joel and Gabryel.

They had just ordered their food when they heard a girly laugh and locked up to see Dean and Ellie sitting at a table in the secluded area.

"Look," Draco said, pointing to a table not far away from Ellie's. He pointed at a guy that looked very much like Gabryel except that he had put on a brown wig so that the couple would not recognize him.

"He's not a very good spy!" Hermione laughed at Gabryel. He was not especially discrete, he stared at the couple without blinking and had a slight angry look at his face.

They continued to watch the scene with amusement even after they got their food. They watched until Ellie and Dean was about to leave and saw with joy when Ellie took her unfinished drink in her hand and on her way towards the door dropped it over Gabryel's head. Seeing Gabryel's facial expression was almost even better than seeing the water drench the wig making him look like a drenched cat. The whole restaurant stopped with whatever they were doing to watch as Ellie yelled at her cousin for not trusting her or respecting her private life. Gabryel locked embarrassed for being yelled at, and at a public restaurant nonetheless, but still had a stubborn expression on his face.

But the expression on Gabryel's face when Ellie was finished lecturing him and took Deans hand before quickly leaving her cousin was the most entertaining of it all.

**A/N: So, this is not the best chapter that I've written, but I thought that I should update anyways. I was very tired when I wrote this, so it might be some strange sentences, just so you know. So R&R people! **

**Guess who I am going to say thank you to? That's right! Freakyella or in this story more known as Ellie!**


	18. Chapter 18: Holidays

**A/N: I just wanted to say thank you to Christine11, your review made me really happy and pleased! So thank you!**

**Later down, I've written Ulrika Eleonora d.y. D.y. in Swedish means the younger!**

_20__th__ December_

When the holidays started 20th December, Hermione couldn't be happier. For once, if felt like she had no problems at all and she would spend her holiday with 3 of her friends! Sure, she would miss her parents, but she would see them at the soon.

She sat in her room and had just finished packing her bag with clothes, books and presents that she would need for the break. Her parents, Harry, Ginny, and Ron's present were currently on its way towards Britain with five of the schools strongest owls. She double-checked that she'd had everything she needed, gave a slight sigh and started to close her trunk when Blaise walked into her room.

"Hey, what's with the sight sigh?" He asked amused.

"I'm just going to miss this place, spending the evenings with you and Draco." she said with a sad smile.

"But at least you are going to see Draco a lot." He said, trying to cheer her up.

"That's true. Will you help me carry this downstairs?" She said, pointing at her trunk.

"Sure!" Blaise said. When he'd lifted it he huffed under it's wight and grunted: "What do you have in it, rocks?"

"It's not that heavy!

"Yes it is!"

They continued with their friendly bicker till they reached the bottom of the stairs were they broke out in uncontrolled laughter, oh, she would definitely miss Blaise. It was so easy being around him. She could really be herself around him without feeling like a dork.

**ooo**

Gabryel had said to Draco that they plus Hermione and Ellie would travel together to Ellie's house where they would meet Ellie and Gabryel's families for some tea before Draco and Gabryel would take a port key to his house.

Traveling to and away from the Institute was another big difference from Hogwarts. Here, they did not take a train to the school. They each booked a port key at the ministry in their country and when the students travelled home, Mrs. Nord and the other staff-members created the port-keys. So it took a while.

When it finally was their turn the quartet took their trunks and reached for the old plate Mr. Wilkner (their Herbology-teacher) held and put one hand on it and the other hand grabbing their trunks.

"Are you ready?" Mr. Wilkner asked the group. When they all nodded he started to count down from five and when he'd said zero Draco felt the usual feeling that indicated that they were on their way. Seconds later he felt his feet stand steadily on a flat floor and he dropped the trunk and port-key to smooth his robe, feeling a bit dizzy. He always had hated traveling with port-keys.

"ELLIE!" he heard a little girl scream and saw how a dark-blond hair passed through him to flung herself at Ellie.

"Hi Louise!" Ellie said bending down to pick up what Draco guessed was her little sister. He looked around and saw that they had landed in front of a quite big brick-house with a large garden. No neighbors' as far as Draco could see. A perfect place for a wizard-family to live!

He walked to he stood next to Granger and watched how the two families greeted their children. Then Ellie and Gabryel introduced them for their parents Mr. and Mrs. Atterling and Mr. and Mrs. A. Bonér.

Before they arrived Gabryel had explained to him that his father had taken his mothers last name because Bonér was a nicer family name than Atterling. But his father had not wanted to just delete his original name, so the family was now called Atterling Bonér, but no one ever said Atterling.

They walked into the house and after having tea with the Atterling family, he gave Hermione and Ellie each a hug before he left them for Gabryel's home. They landed outside a house that looked like a small castle.

"Draco, Welcome to Bonér castle!" Mrs. Bonér said. The castle was made of terracotta bricks with copper-roof that had begun to be green. The castle had turrets and towers and he guessed that it was similar to the size of Malfoy manor. The castle had a medieval feeling over it and Mrs. Bonér told him that it had been in her family's estate for generations.

They walked in and he was given one of the guest rooms that apparently was called 'The royal chamber' because of a long time ago, before the Bonér family lived here, the Swedish King Fredrik and Queen Ulrika Eleonore d.y. Not that he really cared, but it was a good story to brag about to his Slytherin friends later.

Draco spend two days alone with Gabryel's family before Ellie's family came the 22 December. They would stay there for the rest of the holiday and that made Draco quite happy. Even though he had Gabryel, Draco had felt a bit lonely. He hated to admit it to himself, but he missed Hermione. He enjoyed her company and he liked to make her laugh. Gabryel also noticed that Draco became happier with Hermione here and teased him restless about it.

Ellie was still a bit angry with Gabryel because of this whole Dean-thing. But she quickly forgave him when her father told him that their cousin Veronika would come at Christmas. Apparently they did not like their cousin and they refused to talk to their parents the whole day because they had forgot to mention their cousin's arrival.

"What is it about your cousin that you don't like?" Hermione asked them when they were sitting in Ellie's room. They were all doing different things. Hermione read a book she had borrowed from the castle's library, Ellie was braiding her sister's hair, Draco was writing letters and Gabryel was drawing something he observed form the window.

"She's mean!" Louise said. "And her brother Viktor too!

"She only cares about herself and her brother. She is a bitch to everyone, she is always in a foul mood and all she cares about is getting so much attention as possible." Ellie said, filling out her sister's sentence.

"Sounds a little like you Draco." Hermione teased.

"Ha ha." was his only response.

"Well, you'll meet Veronika tomorrow, so you can always see for your selves!" Gabryel said with an indifferent tone.

They all decided to go to bed when they saw that Louise had fallen asleep in her sister's lap. There was always a day tomorrow!

**ooo**

The morning after they were all woken up at 9 by the castle house-elf Hortencia and they all sat at the table eating breakfast at. 9.30 a.m. when a grey owl tapped at the window.

"Oh, it's you Aunt Tyra's owl Gabryel!" Mr. Bonér said, opening the window and reading the letter.

"It looks like they are a bit delayed. They should come in time for after-noon tea though"

"Yeay!" They heard Louise shriek when she heard that her cousins, aunt and uncle would be late, and not even her parents could avoid laughing.

They spent the morning with having a huge snowball fight and then they had a lovely soup-lunch. Hermione then enjoyed the last hours of peace, as Ellie called it, in Draco's room sitting in a chair reading. They were suddenly interrupted by a knock on the door and Ellie looked in with a smirk and a mischievous look in her eye telling them to put on their cloaks so they could greet her Aunt Tyra and her family.

Ten minutes later they all stood out in the cold waiting for the family to arrive. After two more minutes Mrs. Atterling said:

"There they are" and pointed to the sky. First Hermione didn't see anything but after a while she was a carriage and two horses up in the sky.

"Why don't they travel with port-key? Draco asked.

"Not fancy enough" Gabryel answered. They all stood quite after that and watched how the carriage came closer and closer until they saw it land bumpily on the ground. The door was flung open and a beautiful woman stepped outside. She quickly went to hug her brothers that she had a lot in common with when it came to their looks. She had long dark blond hair but was paler than the brothers.

After her, a quite not so beautiful man came out and greeted the brothers as well. She guessed it was her Bulgarian husband Ellie told her about and not long after him a girl in their age stepped outside. She had long, dark brown hair and her skin had paleness that you could compare to Draco's. She stepped aside so her brother, who looked like her, except he was a boy, could step out. They started greeting everyone and when she came to Ellie and Draco she just looked them in the eye and greeted them with a simple "cousin."

Then she came to Hermione. She looked at her with a surprised look.

"And, are you?"

"My name is Hermione Granger, it's a pleasure to meet you." Hermione replied politely.

"Yea, we'll see about that" Was Veronika's answer before she turned to Draco. This time she did not look surprised, but more like she just seen a miracle or something similar.

"Draco Malfoy." Draco said, not being polite to her after her rude comment to Hermione.

"Pleasure meeting you." She said with a slimy voice. Then she turned to the man driving the carriage and said.

"You carry in my bag to my room."

**A/N: Moahahah I can't wait for the Christmas day chapter!**

**So here's the chapter. Tell me what you think about it will ya? And as always thanks to my amazing friend and beta Freakyella. Don't know how I would manage without you! **

**R & R.**


	19. Chapter 19: The Christmas ball

**Chapter 19:**

**A/N: I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, firstly it was sportvacation and I went to Italy to skiing and then school started with a lot of homework and then I lost the interest for a while but now I'm ready to write again. (Especially since FreakyElla told our English-teacher that we are writing fanfiction, so now I have to continue :P) . I hope you forgive me!**

**And thanks to you who reviews and to Sylviecake231, I'm happy you like my Swedish characters because the most of them I have based on my own friends and classmates! :D. For example me and FreakyElla. Guess who we are. We are both in this chapter! Yeay!**

**R&R!**

_25__th__ December_

Draco was just about to get into the shower before the annual Christmas ball that the Bonér apparently used to have. Just like his family! Gabryel really was the Swedish version of himself! The day before the 24th of December they had the, like the rest of Sweden, celebrated Christmas and given each other presents. Since Ellie had a little sister "Santa" came and gave them a few presents, and little Louise had been thrilled. It was hilarious that she actually believed in mugglestuff like "Santa". The presents were nothing special but he was glad that he'd got so many presents from his Swedish friends!

He showered quickly and put on his dress robe for the evening. He had, or more like it, Hermione had chosen a dark marine colored robe and to his surprise the color fitted him surprisingly well. But the insight that Hermione had realized that the color fitted him well flabbergasted him more!

The guests would come at 6.00 pm and a quarter before he went downstairs to ask if Mrs. Bonér wanted any help. He was after all a true gentleman! After asking her and getting a bouquet of lilies to carry into the ball room he saw Gabryel coming down the stairs with a very pleased expression on his face. Deciding to walk with Draco to the ball room Draco couldn't help himself asking why he was so satisfied.

"Remember two days ago when I told you that I was about to come up with my own spell?"

"Yes, I do, you locked yourself up in your room the whole day today. Making me spend the whole day with your lovely cousin." Draco said with sarcasm.

"And you had an amazing day!" Gabryel said with a smirk.

"Absolutely, so what's your point?"

"Oh, I almost forgot! Yes, my point is that all day I have worked on a little prank spell. Nothing to serious though, my parents would kill me if I did something too bad. So I've come up with a spell that produces a misteltoe, and the closest girl and boy underneath it magically starts to snog each other for a little while." Gabryel said with a leer.

"And who do you plan to use this little charm on?" Draco asked his Swedish friend while raising a brow.

"Oh, I don't know. The people I think should snog. My aunt Viorica could use a snog, maybe then she would get a little happier! Oh, there are the girls, lets' go to them!" Gabryel said excitedly as he saw Ellie and Hermione.

**ooo**

Hermione watched as Draco and Gabryel walked towards them. They both locked very handsome in their dress robes. She felt a little dizzy when she saw that Draco actually had followed her advice and put on his marine dress robe. She herself wore a ruby red dress robe that represented Fox or Gryffindor, she hadn't really decided yet.

The small group talked for 10 minutes before Mrs. Bonér and Mrs. Atterling arrived in the Ball-room to tell them that the first guests had arrived.

During the first half hour more than 100 people either apparated or travelled with floo-powder to the Bonér Manor. Many of their friends from the Institute were there like the Heads Vera and Ivorian, Joel, Phillemon, Tristan, Pauline and of course some of their Hogwarts friends like Dean, Parvati, Seamus and Blaise.

To show Ellie that Gabryel had changed his mind about her dating life Dean and Ellie were the first people he used his little spell on and you could see that Ellie literally glowed afterwards. Though, Hermione did not know if it was because of the kiss or because of her cousin's change of mind.

The evening went on with live music from an orchestra in the west corner that played both modern and classical dance music. To her surprise both Blaise and Joel asked her to dance and she couldn't help to wish that Draco would ask her. Harry and Ron always asked her to dance, so she had this urge to dance with him. She couldn't really describe it. It was exhausting to think about!

Although to her surprise, when the trombone player announced that this would be the last song for the evening Draco walked up to her.

"May I have this dance Hermione?" He asked politely.

"It would be a pleasure." She saw how Blaise and Gabryel watched the scene with big smirks on their faces.

When the orchestra started to play a slow song she felt Draco's hand on her waist she slowly put her hand on his shoulder and she suddenly got nervous. What if she stepped on his toes? He would think that she was inept, which she wasn't.

They danced slowly throughout the song and when the orchestra thanked the applauding crowd they saw Gabryel sneaking up behind one of the pillars in the room, pointing his wand at them.

"He wouldn't." She heard Draco say before she was lunged towards Draco and got involved in a deep kiss. A very, very deep kiss!

She felt Draco's hands once again grabbing her waist and she was thankful for that. Otherwise she would not been able to stand upright on her spaghetti legs. She found that the kiss was actually very nice and she was glad that Viktor had been more into kissing than talking so that she'd had some experience. Because Draco definitely had it! The kiss deepened even more before she felt the spell starting to lose its power.

Hermione took a step back, took a deep breath and locked up at Draco and found him watching her with a smirk on his face.

"You're a good kisser Granger!" His smirk grew when she blushed and then he turned around and walked towards the master of the spell with determined steps.

**A/N: Hope you like it dear friends!**


	20. Chapter 20: New Year's Eve

_Chapter 20_

**A/N: Hello everyone! I wanted to thank all of you who favourite and story alerts my fanfic, I get so happy every time I check my mail and see that I have another mail from fanfiction!**

**I just need to sort something out! In chapter 17 (I think) Louise mention that their cousin is named Viktor and then in the last chapter I mention another Viktor. Viktor Krum to be precise. So Ellie and Gabryel's' cousin Viktor and the Viktor Hermione mention in the last chapter is NOT the same person! **

**Another little note for those of you who read my grammar carefully, my friend enlightened me that I should write in British English since Harry Potter ****is British.**** So ****from ****now on, I will start to write more British-English. Or at least I will try! So don't write any reviews that I misspell the word color when I will write colour. **

He was going to fucking murder Gabryel! It was not like he didn't have enjoyed the kiss, he truly had. He had told Granger the truth. She was a good kisser. She really was. So it wasn't the kiss that was the problem. It wasn't even the fact that Gabryel had used his little spell on them, that part was kind of fun actually. The problem was that he had used the spell in front of all of their friends. Now all of them would think of the kiss as a prank. A jest that didn't mean anything. But that wasn't the whole truth.

Because Draco had realised something during their snogging session and it wasn't something he was pleased about. But it had popped up in his head, and now he couldn't even force the thought away. The realisation of his was not something that would make things easier, rather the contrary.

It had hit him like a slap in the face, he liked it. He, Draco Malfoy had liked it when Hermione Granger kissed him. Not liked it because she was a good kisser. He had liked it that it was her hand in his hair, her waist that he had held and he had liked that odd warm feeling in his stomach that she had elicit. And that realisation scared the shit out of him.

He had no idea how to deal with this insight of his and it was not like he could talk about it with Blaise. Firstly, because they did not talk about feelings and secondly because then Blaise, Joel and Gabryel would be right about that he felt something for Granger, more than friendship. If it was something Draco hated it was being wrong, especially when it came to being wrong about himself. Maybe he could write a letter to Pansy. She was better at this understanding feeling stuff than he was, but her reply would take days.

He went to his room and wrote Pansy but concluded that he would probably need to figure this out for himself. And if he was going to figure this out he probably would need to talk to Granger. Lovely.

* * *

><p>"So..." Ellie began a bit hesitant when they both lay in Ellie's big double bed an hour after the last guests had left.<p>

"So... what?" Hermione asked the other witch.

"Care to share your feeling about the evening?"

"Why do I have the feeling that that question is aiming on a special event this evening?" Hermione asked with a sigh.

"That's exactly what I mean! So how do you feel?"

"How I feel about the kiss or about Draco?"

"Both!" Ellie said excitedly.

"Well, the kiss was nice," Hermione started reluctantly. Not sure how much of her thoughts she wanted to share with her mentor. The kiss had indeed been nice. But there's was the fact that it seemed like Draco had liked it too. That made her a bit unsure of the kiss deepness. Was it that deep because they unconsciously wanted it or because of the spell. She new for fact that she had wanted to pull her fingers through his hair, and she had. So how much did the spell force you to do and how much had been what they wanted to do to each other?

He was very attractive. She couldn't deny it, it was simply the truth. But she didn't know how Ellie would react to this information. One thing that Hermione counted on though, was that she would be ecstatic. Ecstatic and Ellie did not fit well together. It often ended with that Ellie got so over-thrilled that she just had to punch your arm or squeeze the life out of your hand, and New Years was coming up and a bruise on her arm would not look nice together with her New Years dress!

"The kiss was nice?" Ellie interrupted her thoughts. "That kiss was more than nice. It looked like you would eat up each other. None of the other couples' kisses were as intense as yours were!" A light blush coloured Hermione's cheeks and she saw how Ellie started to smirk.

"Let's sleep, I'm tired." Hermione said

"Oh missy, you're not getting away so easy!" Ellie said, the smirk still playing on her lips. "But I will be pleased if you answer one more question!"

"Okay, just one more!" Hermione agreed, knowing that she was not able to argue herself out of this.

"You are happy it happened, right?"

"Yes." Was Hermione's honest answer and it troubled her that she was. Draco Malfoy's kisses were not something she should be glad over. What would Harry and Ron say if they knew that she had French-kissed their nemesis? She reckoned that would not be a pleasant conversation.

Once again, Ellie interrupted her thoughts;

"Good night Hermy"

"Good night Ellie!"

"Promise me one thing before you go to sleep though."

"What?" Hermione said tiredly.

"Try not to think too much about Draco before you fall asleep." Ellie gave her a smirk when she saw the blush growing for the second time in 10 minutes on Hermione's cheeks before she turned out the light.

* * *

><p><em>31th December <em>

Hermione had just stepped out of a steaming shower and cast a drying spell on hair before she started to fix her hairstyle for the New Year's party she would attend in 2 hours. For the evening the Bonér and Atterling family had been invited to Stockholm to celebrate New Year's Eve with Mr. Bonér and Mr. Atterling's chef Mr. Wallenberg.

Both of the brothers worked at the Swedish ministry of magic and the families always went to the Wallenberg New Year's party. Ellie and Gabyrel had said that they would eat dinner at Mr. Wallenberg's party and maybe stay till 10.30 pm before they would sneak away to Joel where he would have a more entertaining New Year's party.

So that meant two dresses for one evening. Hermione thought back on the five last days since the Bonér Christmas Ball and came to the conclusion that she hadn't seen Draco or Gabryel much. The 26 and 27 of December she, Ellie and Ellie's awful cousin Veronika had gone to Stockholm to do some New Year's dress shopping. They had looked both in muggle and wizard stores and she had found two lovely dresses. One grey dress robe for the ball and a navy muggledress for Joel's party. When they've came home Gabryel and Draco had travelled with Joel and his father to Gothenburg to see a broolo game and they'd come home this morning.

So, back to the present, she was just going to put on her dress robe. The dress was grey and simply perfect. The top part of the dress was pleated sleeveless with halter neck silk ribbons. The bottom part of the dress floated nicely down from her waist to her feet and a silk ribbon tied the bottom and top part together. Her favourite part of the dress was though the open back. The silk ribbon at her waist hugged her lower back in a very flattering way. Till the dress, she had decided to just curl her hair into neat curls. She had decided on a light make-up with just a tad of grey eye-shadow and some lip-gloss. Hermione had always believed in the less is more principle.

When she was ready, there was 20 minutes before their caravan dragged by charmed horses would arrive so she decided to go and see how Ellie was doing.

As Hermione opened her friends bedroom door she saw that Ellie was still in her bathrobe, trying to straightened her hair without much success.

"Hermione!" Ellie cried when she saw her friend in the mirror. "Some help please?" she asked. Fifteen minutes later Ellie too was ready to leave and she only needed to put on her cloak over her dark blue-sequin dress robe before they would wait for the others in the lounge.

* * *

><p>A few hours later they were still at the Wallenberg New Year's Ball and they had just spent a couple of hours boring small-talking with the adult guests at the Party. Both Hermione and Draco were apparently very interesting and he barley had any time to talk to his friends.<p>

"Draco, we're leaving now" He heard Hermione whisper in his ear and he felt that weird feeling in his abdomen when Granger's breathe tickled his neck. He turned to follow her when she abruptly stopped. He locked over his shoulder to see why and saw that Gabryel's terrific cousin Veronika was approaching.

"Quickly," he heard Hermione whisper under her breath. "Let's go this way." She said while taking his hand and dragging him in the opposite direction. He couldn't help the small smile on his lips and he started thinking of Ellie's plan for the evening.

The plan was rather simple. 1. Go to the Ball. 2. Sneak away to Joel's party, and the most important part of the plan: 3. Make sure Veronika didn't join them to the party.

He thought it was an excellent plan as he couldn't stand their cousin at all. He looked back and saw that they had lost her in the crowd. He whispered it to Granger and they slowly sneaked out of the ballroom and then, still hand in hand, made a quick run towards their coats. Their mentors were already waiting for them and gave each other a quick glance when they saw that he and Granger held hands. He quickly released his hand from hers and tried to ignore the hurt feeling in her face.

Gabryel gave them their coats before he nodded at the door. Outside, they all grabbed each other's hands as they'd agreed on before Gabryel side-apparated them to Joel's house.

* * *

><p>After making sure that they all had their balance, the released each others' hands and Hermione looked up at the house. It was not a manor, but it was very big and it had a huge porch. It was probably there they would stand when the New Year began and watch the fireworks that Joel had promised.<p>

"Are we going to stand here all day or are we going to enter?" Draco said after a few minutes of silence. All of them seemed to be lost in thought and all jumped as Draco spoke.

"Yeah, sure. The door is this way!" Ellie said and pointing to the left side of the house. When they stepped inside they saw that the party already had started and they rapidly changed their clothes. Instead of her grey dress robe Hermione now wore a mid thigh marine muggle dress that showed her long legs. This dress also was sleeveless, but this time the straps covered her shoulders. The dress was an overlap dress with a few folds that decorated the front. It was rather simple but looked extraordinary on her. She let her hair and makeup remain the same and put on a pair of royal-blue heels. The two different blue colours looked surprisingly good together and she was pleased with that they were actually very comfy.

"Wow, you look so beautiful!" Ellie shrieked and hugged Hermione tightly. She looked very nice herself with her dark powder pink dress that showed both legs and cleavage. She gave Ellie a smile and they walked out to the party.

They had just stepped into the room when a blond haired boy lunged himself at them and gave them a tight hug.

"Hi, Joel! Nice to see you too!" Ellie laughed.

"You came!" He said with a happy but drunk voice.

"We wouldn't miss your party for anything in the world!" Ellie said, smiling. "And here comes the boys with drinks" she said ending the sentence with a shriek. Hermione looked behind her and saw Draco and Gabryel walking towards them with one drink in each hand. To her surprise, both of them wore muggle-jeans and a shirt.

She slowly accepted the drink Draco gave her, and when he saw her nervous expression he asked:

"Have you ever had a drink before Granger?" and to her shock, without a smirk!

"Yes, but never like this."

"Like this?"

"Never like this as in never at New Year's." She explained.

"Well, better drink it then." He said, still very serious.

* * *

><p>This party was definitely more fun than the other they had been at, even though the Ball had been very interesting. The night passed quickly and before she knew it, it was 7 minutes left of the New Year and all of the guests stood on the porch talking. Joel had cast a warming spell at the veranda so they didn't need any coats, which was nice.<p>

Ellie had disappeared to find Dean so that he would be her New Year's kiss so Hermione leaned at the wall alone. She looked up to the sky and saw that someone in the neighbourhood already had lit there fireworks. Wizard fireworks were so much prettier than the muggle ones. Much more vivid and colourful.

"Lost in thought?" She heard a familiar voice said and found that Draco had leaned against the wall next to her without her noticing. He reached her a glass of champagne and she saw that all of the guests had received one. She muttered a "thanks" when she took it from him and started to answer his question.

"I was just thinking about how beautiful the fireworks are."

"3 MINUTES EVERYONE" she heard a guy that Joel had introduced as "Markus" call.

"Do you have any New Year's resolution?" She heard herself ask.

"Do I have what?" Draco asked with a confused look in his face.

"A New Year's resolution, it's a muggle thing. A commitment you make to yourself that you will try to fulfil during the year. For example; I will stop smoking."

"You don't smoke Granger."

"I know, it was not an example of mine resolutions. So do you have any? She heard a distant "2 MINITES!" as she looked into Draco's steel grey eyes.

"No, I don't do muggle-traditions" Draco declared. "Then what is your resolution then?"

"I usually think a lot about what my resolution for the coming year would be. But I haven't really thought about it this year. Maybe trying to catch every chance I can. Life is too short to regret things you don't do." She answered thoughtfully.

"1 MINUTE!"

"I think that is the best New Year's resolution I've heard." Draco said with an attempt to a smile on his lips.

"50 SECONDS!"

"It's the only one you've heard." she said amused by his statement.

"Well, it's still good!"

"40 SECONDS!"

"I guess it is." Hermione said thoughtfully and took a little sip from her glass.

"30 SECONDS."

A comfortable silence fell between them as the guy Markus shouted that it was 20 seconds left.

"When does this resolution of yours begin?" Draco asked her.

"15 SECONDS!"

"In 15 seconds" She said smilingly.

"10 SECONDS!" Markus shouted very excitedly now.

"Why do you ask when my resolution began?"

"9!" Markus shouted and now the other guests also started counting.

"Well" he began. Did he look a tad nervous?

"8!"

"7!"

"6!"

"Well, I think that you should start with me"

"5!"

"Sorry? I didn't understand?"

"4!"

"3!"

"Kiss me" he said. When she stared at him like she did not understand him, he sighed and started talking again as the fireworks rapidly made their way up to the sky.

"2!"

"Start your resolution by kissing me."

"1!"

He didn't have to tell her twice. This was after all what she had longed for. As everyone shouted "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" she leaned in her head against his. For the second time that week, Hermione Jean Granger and Draco Lucius Malfoy were kissing, and this time it was entirely their own choice.

**A/N: ah, seven word pages later... One of you reque****sted longer chapters so here you are! I hope you like this chapter because I liked writing it, even though it took its time! As always, thanks to my lovely beta FreakyElla.**

**Lend me your thoughts will ya?**

**Here are the links to the two dresses that Hermione had.**

**Here is the grey dress robe:  
><strong>/se/kl%C3%A4der-f%C3%B6r-kvinnor/kl%C3%A4der/festkl%C3%A4nningar/nelly-eve-1103/julia-dress-201871-80/

**And here is the muggle dress she wore:**

/se/kl%C3%A4der-f%C3%B6r-kvinnor/kl%C3%A4der/kl%C3%A4nningar/vila-479/carolin-dress-479948-29/


End file.
